To know a country under construction: Mia Couto and his eye for Mozambique is aimed at examining the intellectual devices with which the writer builds his fiction, discussing with the colonial past, the civil war in Mozambique and hope to see his nation raised. To achieve this objective will be used two book reviews, Pensatempos and Se Obama fosse africano, besides three books of chronics by Mia Couto, Cronicando, O fio das missangas and Histórias absonhadas. Rewriting important periods of Mozambique in his books, Mia Couto allows us to understand how the years following the independence of his country were from the perspective of an intellectual and Mozambican citizen. This work was carried out using as guiding texts by some theorists of the post-colonial criticism, such as Boaventura de Souza Santos, Edward Said, Fátima Mendonça, Francisco Noa, Homi Bhabha, Margarida Calafate Ribeiro, Stuart Hall and Russel Hamilton. Also used were critical texts that analyze the literary creation of Mia Couto, as well as historical texts focused on the contexts in which his narratives were produced.