Ana Paula Maia’s novel Of Cattle and Men was declared the winner of the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2024 in London, UK on Wednesday, April 17, 2024.
The Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses is an annual British literary prize founded by the author Neil Griffiths. It rewards fiction published by UK and Irish small presses, defined as those with fewer than five full-time employees. The prize first handed out in 2017 has been won by among others John Keene, Eley Williams, Will Eaves, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, Norman Erikson Pasaribu, Shola von Reinhold, and Missouri Williams.
The jury for this year is comprised of short story writer and critic Declan O’Driscoll, Deputy and Reviews Editor at Wasafiri magazine Sana Goyal, and award-winning author and journalist Rebecca Abrams. This panel went through the entries of the prize and selected 13 books to be in the longlist on February 5 before the shortlist was announced on Monday, March 4.
The winner of the award is Of Cattle and Men, Ana Paula Maia, translated by Zoe Perry (Charco Press). The book’s blurb goes thus; In a landscape worthy of Cormac McCarthy, the river runs septic with blood. Edgar Wilson makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of a cow, then stuns it with a mallet. It’s important to calm the cows, especially now that they seem so unsettled. Bronco Gil, the foreman, thinks it’s a jaguar or a wild boar. Edgar Wilson has other suspicions. But what is certain is that there is something in this desolate corner of Brazil driving men, and animals, to murder and madness.
Jury member Declan O’Driscoll described the way the novel’s “unresolved nature leaves an indelible impression on the reader, making it an exceptionally powerful piece of literature.”
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