ESTORIL SOL AWARDS
"Felicidade" by João Tordo wins the Fernando Namora Literary Prize.
Teresa Veiga (literary pseudonym) was born in Lisbon where she lives. She graduated in Law in 1968 and in Romance Philology in 1980, having worked as a registrar of the Civil Registry between 1975 and 1983, in several locations in Alentejo and Algarve, where she lived for several years. She was also a teacher and signed eight books, among volumes of short stories, novels and novellas.
In a short time, Teresa Veiga conquered the specialized critics, who highlighted her "remarkable narrative domain". She was, in the meantime, distinguished with several literary prizes, namely, as a short story writer, a modality in which she achieved remarkable notoriety.
In its minutes, the Jury found in the winning novel "O senhor d`Além" a "clear and luminous writing" that gives us "a captivating story of people simultaneously common and singular. The author's stylistic sobriety, exemplary as a way of understanding artistic writing, structures a novel whose readability calls the reader to participate in the narrative that is being read. Whether for the remarkable ability to observe and describe, the quiet inventiveness, or the admirable economy of the narrative.
For the Jury, "O Senhor d'Além" is "a novel that is a compliment to the art of good writing. To point out its importance in current Portuguese literature is, therefore, to validate its intrinsic value.
Teresa Veiga says that "when I started writing "O Senhor d`Além" I still didn't have a defined plan, but I already knew that it would develop around two fundamental points: the discovery by someone of a place in the Algarve that I had known and loved for a long time, and a certain house, a roadside interview, which for some reason awoke a particular resonance in me.
"And so it was, around this house and that man, that the story was built, characters and situations arising almost as an inevitability."
"One could call this book "The House of Palm Trees" and it would also be a fitting title. After all it is the house and the gentleman d`Além that open the book and determine its outcome."
"It was a book written with special pleasure because it obeyed a very strong motivation".
It should be remembered that Teresa Veiga is the only Portuguese writer to have been awarded the Camilo Castelo Branco Short Story Grand Prize three times until 2020. Despite the awards and the consecration of her quality work, the writer is reserved and averse to public interventions and does not usually grant interviews. It is even known that she has been to one of her book launches, but without the public knowing who it was about.
She is considered, therefore, a "mysterious" author who arouses the curiosity of readers interested in knowing more about the fictionist's profile.
Teresa Veiga published her first book in 1981 - "Jacobo e Outras Histórias" - and was soon noted for the exceptional nature of her writing.
The Jury also highlighted other competing novels, and the works by José Luís Peixoto, "Sunday Lunch"; by José Gardeazabal, "Quarentena Uma História de Amor"; by Hugo Gonçalves, "Deus Pátria Família"; by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, "Maremoto"; and by Amadeu Lopes Sabino, "Tempo de Fuga", were among the finalists voted.
About "The Promised War", the jury, presided by Guilherme D`Oliveira Martins, considered it to be "a novel that, starting from Francisco Grandella's innovative business and social action, builds a family and personal story of great human scope. The transition period from the 19th to the 20th century until the First World War is marked by situations of poverty that will determine the protagonist's evolution.
According to the minutes, the novel "is not only of period, but also of psychological and social significance", using language that is "at a creative level that, associated with the original four‑part narrative structure, gives this work a remarkable literary prominence in what could be considered a new realism".
Marco Pacheco, the author, portrays himself as an "Azorean from several islands".
And he explains: "I was born in São Jorge a few months after the 25th of April, but I also lived in Terceira and São Miguel before coming to study in Lisbon, where I now live in the parish of Campolide. I played soccer in the national secondary levels, with a meteoric passage through the youth levels of Sporting, in both cases with notable failure. Because of this dislike and love for letters, I became an advertising copywriter and thus found a way to make a living out of writing. Today I am Executive Creative Director at the BBDO advertising agency, where I write stories for brands, known as ads.
About the book, Marco Pacheco says that there are "some subjects that, in different degrees, fascinate me: the temerity of adolescence, faith (more or less religious), and, above all, death. Death not only as fatality, mystery or escape, but also as a goal, as an ideal, as redemption. A very Christian and somewhat radical idea that needed a time that was also radical, as was the time of the First Portuguese Republic.
The author of "The Promised War" also confesses that it was during this time that "I encountered political and religious extremism (between monarchists and republicans), but also optimism (the arrival of the Republic) and fear (of World War I), which helped me build and justify the story of a boy with obsessions and dreams that were a little stranger than usual for his age.
And he concluded ironically: "Another reason for choosing a historical period I knew nothing about was my (perhaps juvenile) desire to go against the advice I heard most often as an aspiring novelist: write about what you know.
In honor of the memory of Vasco Graça Moura, one of the most notable and versatile protagonists of Portuguese cultural life, Estoril Sol instituted a special Prize named after him, dedicated to Cultural Citizenship.
The Vasco Graça Moura Prize aims to distinguish a writer, essayist, poet, journalist, translator or cultural producer who throughout their career - or through a novel and exceptionally important intervention - has contributed to dignify and project the sector in public space. that belong.
By promoting this €20,000 Award, Estoril Sol is convinced that its nature and scope will be a fair recognition of the work of Vasco Graça Moura, and of his fruitful and unusual creative versatility.
Regulation here.
IN A SOLEMN CEREMONY, ON NOVEMBER 23, THE MINISTER OF CULTURE, PEDRO ADÃO E SILVA, HANDED OUT THE FERNANDO NAMORA AND AGUSTINA BESSA-LUIS LITERARY AWARDS, ESTABLISHED BY ESTORIL SOL, FOR 2021.
The Jury decided to attribute the Fernando Namora Literary Award, with a pecuniary value of 15 thousand euros, to the writer João Tordo for his novel "Felicidade".
In the minutes, it was recorded that "Felicidade" "is a novel of emotional and affective formation of a man who is a narrator, although without a name that identifies him throughout the book. The drama of loneliness of the narrator and novel's protagonist assumes great intensity and power to involve the reader. Also the gear is set on a precise but creative plane of realization. The names of the three female figures, Felicidade, Esperança, and Angélica, project a symbolism that expands the imaginative process itself."
In turn, regarding the Agustina Bessa-Luís Literary Revelation Award, with the value of 10 thousand euros, the Jury distinguished the journalist Catarina Gomes with the original work "Terrinhas".
In choosing "Terrinhas", the jury considered it "a novel that, from the point of view of a typically urban woman, confronts the rural and urban worlds. The memory of her parents, who almost religiously go to the land to bring potatoes, which invade the kitchen and the narrator's imagination, provides the ironic and, at times, even hilarious vision with which she evaluates her childhood and faces the pains and dramas of adulthood. The joy and touching tenderness in the assessment of life and death, associated with a fluid and elegant writing, give this novel an undeniable literary scope, which should be valued and divulged.
Finally, in the Vasco Graça Moura - Cultural Citizenship Award, the Jury decided to distinguish the editor Zeferino Coelho, praising the "action developed, for more than fifty years, as an editor and active promoter of the Portuguese language literature and culture in the world".
The Jury's minutes state that Zeferino Coelho "began his work as an editor in 1969 at Editorial Inova, where he remained until 1971, having joined Editorial Caminho in 1977. He was José Saramago's editor from the novel Levantado do Chão and all the other books published by the Portuguese Literature Nobel Prize winner until his death. He was also the editor of eight winners of the Camões Award, the most important in our language - in chronological order: José Craveirinha, Saramago himself, Sophia de Mello Breyner, Luandino Vieira, Arménio Vieira, Mia Couto, Germano Almeida and Paulina Chiziane. This group of authors published by Zeferino Coelho, among many others, shows the importance of the award winner's cultural intervention, especially regarding the national and international diffusion of Portuguese language literature".