Mozambique Mysteries, by Lisa St Aubin de Terán

There can be few writers who have wandered as much as Lisa St Aubin de Terá*, mixing men and danger and place in what seems like an endless succession of foolish decisions. Most famously, she slept with a gun under her pillow to protect herself and her daughter from her violent and schizophrenic (first) husband. But this indulgent combination of romance, exotic location and danger has always made good reading, and Terá* is on familiar footing as she sets the ground for this, her 17th book: "Explaining how I got into some of the places where I have been often seemed like the only way of introducing a reader into that world."

She starts this book newly divorced, heavily in debt and vowing not to get involved with men again. Until, that is, she meets the unfortunately named Dutch war correspondent: Mees van Deth. Together they travel to the Mossuril Peninsula of Mozambique and fall in love with it and each other.

The peninsula is a sun-seeker's dreamland: a place of beaches, palm trees and coral reefs. It is cut off from the mainland by a mangrove forest that has sheltered the villagers from civil war and Aids, but also from development, schooling and medical services. Most men and women dream of better times for their children. Most parents have to see some, at least, of their children die before them. The tide steals children, as do malaria, chest infections and diarrhoea. Women die in childbirth, men die at sea.

It is many people's dream to give up the office job and help in developing countries. Terá* is one of the few brave or foolish enough to live it out. She tells us she has gone through life "in an almost constant daydream", haphazardly stumbling from one mistake to the next, until she discovers Mossuril. "The difference between everywhere else I have seen or known and Mossuril...is that when I first set foot [there]... I felt that I never wanted to leave: not now, not ever."

As a child she dreamt of setting up a chain of African schools and libraries. Although her fantasy is scaled down by reality, after much time and effort the Makua College of Tourism and Agriculture was opened in 2004. It will not, she writes, "change the world, but will change a small part of it".

Terá* writes beautifully of her life and the parallel lives of the villagers around her: "Time hangs likes clothes on a line of events. Last weekend, next weekend, today, yesterday and the various weeks and months are timeless. Only events are remembered, and life is measured from one to another."

Terá* is an odd addition to the local scenery. A wanderer in a place where no one leaves home; an unmarried woman in a place where men and women have many spouses. Despite the dissimilarities, there is the sense of a curious symbiosis, with everyone benefiting from the other's presence. Certainly the Mossuril Peninsula supplies Terá* with the perfect material to weave her own brand of exoticism: the mangrove forest "champagne-bubbling" pure oxygen; the old Portuguese naval academy, where she lives and works, complete with ball room; and her walks along pristine white beaches, collecting willow-pattern porcelain from ancient Chinese wrecks.

She does experience setbacks. It is a struggle to find the money for her foundation; a struggle to open the college on time; a struggle to change established practices. But Terá* is both a committed worker and a woman you feel capable of maintaining her own bubble, and she glosses over many problems to focus more on the mainly negative reactions of aid workers ("Your project will be a piss in the ocean. You have nothing except ideas"), the damaging incursions of local wildlife and the cultural divide at the college, when chefs try to introduce delicate soup to people who are malnourished.

The book rambles towards the end, with many important people getting a mention in the manner of a Hollywood acceptance speech, but this is a good example to what a little foreign money and local determination can achieve. While Terá*'s future plans to compile a reference book on the medicinal flora of the mangroves make one think she has had a little too much sun, this book bears witness to a good kind of madness, of which many will be jealous.

Virago £17.99 (384pp) £16.49 (free p&p) from 0870 079 8897

Justin Hill's books include 'Towards Asmara' (Abacus)

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