In this talk, Professor Hamilton looks to introduce the work of the important Mozambican writer, Mia Couto, to the Hong Kong reader. He does so by referencing his newly published co-edited collection of research on this exciting writer, titled A Companion to Mia Couto (2016) – a project that was made possible by the generous support received from the Faculty of Arts at CUHK in the form of an award of a Humanities Fellowship in 2015. An influential writer who has been recognized by many important international literary awarding bodies, Couto is presented in this talk as a significant voice in world literature. However, in making much of Couto’s continuing and serious scientific work as an environmental biologist, Professor Hamilton makes a case here for thinking of Couto’s compelling fiction as the product of a mind that marries the seemingly antagonistic worlds of the poet and the scientist.