Camões prize to be awarded to Mozambican Paulina Chiziane on May 5, in Lisbon

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Camões prize to be awarded to Mozambican Paulina Chiziane on May 5, in Lisbon

6:10 CAT | 27 Apr 2023

File photo: Notícias

Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane will receive the Camões Prize, awarded in 2021, on 5 May, in a ceremony to be held at the National Coach Museum in Lisbon, the Portuguese ministry of culture announced on Wednesday.

The award will be delivered to the author of “Balada de Amor ao Vento” and “Ventos do Apocalipse” by the hands of the Portuguese prime minister, António Costa, in a ceremony scheduled for 16:00 at the National Coach Museum.

The award ceremony comes 10 days after the ceremony to award the Camões Prize to Chico Buarque, the 2019 winner, which was held at the National Palace of Queluz in Sintra.

The delay was initially due to the refusal of Brazil’s then president, Jair Bolsonaro, to sign the diploma for the Brazilian writer and musician’s award, and then to the pandemic, which consequently left blocked the awards that followed: the Portuguese writer and essayist Vítor Manuel de Aguiar e Silva (2020), who would die in 2022 without receiving it, and the Brazilian poet and novelist Silviano Santiago (2022).

READ: Brazilian legend Buarque receives prestigious literary award…four years late – Watch

For the Portuguese minister of culture, Pedro Adão e Silva, “the award of the Camões Prize to Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane is a moment of enormous significance and symbolism for Portuguese culture. She is the first black woman to receive the most prestigious award in the Portuguese language.

When it awarded the prize, the jury, which unanimously chose the Mozambican writer, justified its choice with “her vast production and critical reception, as well as the academic and institutional recognition of her work”.

The jury also mentioned the importance that Paulina Chiziane dedicates in her books to the problems of Mozambican and African women, and underlined her recent work in reaching out to young people, namely in building bridges between literature and other arts.

The jury of the 33rd edition of the Camões Prize was composed of Jorge Alves de Lima (Brazil), Raul César Gouveia Fernandes (Brazil), Teresa Manjate (Mozambique), Ana Maria Martinho (Portugal), Carlos Mendes de Sousa (Portugal) and Tony Tcheka (Guinea-Bissau).

After receiving the award, Paulina Chiziane dedicated the prize to women, considering that it serves to value the role of women at a time when their work is still undervalued.

Some of her books have been published in Portugal and Brazil, and are translated into English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Serbian and Croatian.

Paulina Chiziane was born in Manjacaze, Mozambique, in 1955. She studied Linguistics in Maputo. She currently lives and works in Zambezia.

Fiction writer, she has published several short stories in the press.

She published her first novel, “Balada de Amor ao Vento” (1990), after the country’s independence, which is also the first published novel by a Mozambican woman.

“Winds of Revelation”, finished in 1991, was published in Maputo in 1993 by the author and was published in Portugal, by Caminho, in 1999, preceding “Ballad of Love to the Wind”, in Portugal, by the same publisher, in 2003.

Caminho also has the author’s titles published in Portugal: “Sétimo Juramento” (2000), “Niketche: Uma História de Poligamia” (2002), “O Alegre Canto da Perdiz” (2008).

Her work also includes “As Andorinhas” (2009), “Na mão de Deus” and “Por Quem Vibram os Tambores do Além” (2013), “Ngoma Yethu: O curandeiro e o Novo Testamento” (2015), “O Canto dos Escravos” (2017), “O Curandeiro e o Novo Testamento” (2018).

Established by Portugal and Brazil in 1988, and awarded for the first time the following year, the Camões Prize is the most prestigious award in the Portuguese language.

Annual in nature, it pays tribute to a writer who, through their work, contributes to the enrichment and projection of the literary and cultural heritage of the Portuguese language.

The Portuguese Ministry of Culture, through the Directorate-General of Books, Archives and Libraries (DGLAB) and the Office of Cultural Strategy, Planning and Assessment (GEPAC), organizes the award of this Prize, which has a pecuniary value of one hundred thousand euros, borne in equal shares by the governments of Portugal and Brazil.

Under the terms of the Regulation, Portugal and Brazil will alternately organize the meetings and ceremonies for the awarding of this Prize.

Source: Lusa