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Mozambican David Bene wins INCM / Vasco Graça Moura Award
10:51 CAT | 21 Dec 2021
File photo: INCM / Imprensa Nacional Portugal
Mozambican writer David Bene has won the 2021 National Press /Vasco Graça Moura Award by unanimous vote with the work “O Vazio de um Céu sem Hinos”, the award promoter announced on Friday.
According to the jury, the winning work, selected from among 90 entries, “seeks a language full of meaning, sometimes impersonal, sometimes sarcastic, between the faded memory of the sublime and the concrete violence of circumstance and history”.
The National Press/Vasco Graça Moura award was created in 2015, alternately recognising original works in the categories Poetry, Essay and Translation. This year, the seventh edition, the award was dedicated to poetry.
“Empty Heaven and its Hymns”, which takes a Wallace Stevens’ verse as its title [The earth, for us, / is flat and bare. / There are no shadows. Poetry // Exceeding music must take the place / Of empty heaven and its hymns,] , “departs from the diagnosis” of the American poet’s work, to establish “a sequence of intertextual, meditative, surprising poems”, the jury wrote.
David Bene, born in Manica, Mozambique in 1993 and currently residing in Japan, writes poetry and prose and has published regularly in literary magazines in these two countries, as well as in Brazil, Portugal and Spain.
His literary debut will be the imminent publication of a work, “Câncer”, the Imprensa Nacional says.
According to the biography provided by the publisher, David Bene holds a degree in Geology from the Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique), a Master’s in Economic Geology from the Akita University (Japan) and a PhD in Mineral Resources Engineering at the Kyushu University (Japan).
Bene is co-founder of OITENTANOVENTA, an initiative which places new literary voices (writers, poets and literary critics) in front of their favourite authors, to talk about writing, books and life.
The National Press Award/Vasco Graça Moura has a monetary value of €5,000 and includes the publication of the awarded work in 2022, by the Portuguese public publisher.
The jury was chaired by critic Pedro Mexia, and included poet and editor Jorge Reis-Sá and university professor Joana Matos Frias.
The prize has previously been awarded to José Gardeazabal (2015), Frederico Pedreira (2016), João Pedro Ferrão (2017), José Luiz Tavares (2018), João Paulo Sousa (2019) and Teresa Aica Bairos (2020).
Source: Lusa / Imprensa Nacional Portugal
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