João Paulo Borges Coelho wins BCI literary prize for ‘Ponta Gea’

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João Paulo Borges Coelho wins BCI literary prize for ‘Ponta Gea’

10:58 CAT | 01 Feb 2018

O historiador e escritor moçambicano João Paulo Borges fala sobre a independência e defende que a luta de libertação de Moçambique legitimou em 1975 o poder da Frelimo, mas, quarenta anos depois, o país não é ainda uma democracia e possui uma Constituição desajustada, em Maputo, Mçambique, 06 de junho de 2015. Para o historiador e escritor moçambicano, passados quarenta anos da independência, a realidade política e económica do país “ainda não está em consonância com a Constituição”. (ACOMPANHA TEXTO). ANTÓNIO SILVA/LUSA

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The Mozambican writer João Paulo Borges Coelho has won the 8th BCI prize for literature with his work ‘Ponta Gea’, which combines the author’s childhood memories with fiction, the competition jury has announced.

“The abundance of the descriptions in the plot produces the poetic effect and contributes to the work’s singularity from the aesthetic point of view,” the jury, chaired the writer and lawyer Jorge Oliveira, says.

In its 348 pages, ‘Ponta Gea’ tells of Coelho’s boyhood in Beira’s Ponta Gea neighbourhood, punctuated by the imagination allowed by fiction to synthesise the idea that, in childhood, reality appears fantasised.

“It also contributes to the affirmation of the author’s style, the clean straightforward writing that has undoubtedly become a mark of his work,” the jury adds.

The prize has a pecuniary value of 200,000 meticais. Borges Coelho also won in 2010 with his book, ‘The Eye of Hertzog’.

João Paulo Borges Coelho was born in Oporto in 1955, but took Mozambican citizenship later. A historian, he is professor of Contemporary History in Mozambique and Southern Africa, at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, and a guest professor in the Master’s in African History at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon.

He has researched the colonial and civil wars in Mozambique, and published articles in Mozambique, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Spain and Canada.

“Ponta Gea,” published in November 2017, is the writer’s 11th novel.