Mia Couto wins Literary Prize with’ The Mapper of Absences’ – the book revisiting Beira

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Mia Couto wins Literary Prize with’ The Mapper of Absences’ – the book revisiting Beira

9:36 CAT | 26 Feb 2021

File photo: Lusa

Mozambican author Mia Couto has won the 2021 Manuel de Boaventura Literary Prize for his novel ‘O Mapeador de Ausências’ [‘The Mapper of Absences’], the Esposende municipality in Portugal, which sponsors the prize, announced on Thursday.

The council in the Braga district justified its majority decision, saying “it is a narrative of high literary maturity that, with particular sensitivity, manages to span different eras of Mozambican reality, offering the reader an expressive representation of the country in the colonial and post-colonial periods”.

Since the award was not unanimous, the jury decided to reveal the preference of Professor Pedro Eiras for the work ‘As Telefones’, by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, for the “creative exploration of the sensibility of two women, mother and daughter, separated by distance and united by the densest intimacy”.

For this year’s edition, 104 literary works from several Portuguese-speaking countries were considered.

The jury, comprised of professors Sérgio Guimarães de Sousa, from the University of Minho, as president, and Pedro Eiras, from the University of Porto, and by librarian Maria Luísa Leite da Silva, from Esposende City Hall, who expressed “satisfaction at the high number of entrees in competition”.

The Manuel de Boaventura Literary Prize was established by Esposende council, with the purpose of honouring and promoting the eponymous writer and man of culture, born in Vila Chã, Esposende.

Granted every two years and worth €7,500, the prize awards novels or stories by Portuguese language writers.

The first (2017) edition was won by Ana Margarida de Carvalho, for her novel ‘Não se pode morar nos olhos de um gato’ and, in 2019, by Filipa Martins, with the book ‘Na Memória dos Rouxinóis’.

Mia Couto’s winning novel portrays the story of the return of Diogo Santiago, a Mozambican intellectual, university professor and poet, to his hometown, the city of Beira, on the eve of the cyclone that devastated it in 2019, to receive a tribute from his fellow citizens.

Mia Couto was born in Beira, Mozambique, in 1955. He has worked as a journalist and teacher, and is currently a biologist and writer.

The award ceremony will take place in Esposende, on a date to be announced.

Source: Lusa