Itamar Vieira Junior’s novel Salvar o fogo won a leading Brazilian literary prize, Prêmio Jabuti 2024, in São Paolo on Tuesday, November 19, 2024.
Prêmio Jabuti (English: “Tortoise Prize”) is a literary award given out by the Brazilian Book Chamber (CBL) conceived by then chairman Edgard Cavalheiro in 1959. Accolades are handed out to authors, editors, illustrators, graphics, and booksellers who stand out each year. The categories include Literature, Cover, Illustration, Editor of the Year, Chart of the Year, Bookseller of the Year and Literary Personality, Adaptation, Graphic Design and Translation as well as Novels, Tales and Chronicles, Poetry, Children’s, Youth, Reportage and Biography.
The finalists for 2024 were announced on Thursday, October 24 before the winners were announced at the Ibirapuera Auditorium in São Paulo on November 19. The only winner of African descent (to our knowledge) was Salvar o fogo (English: Save The Fire) by Itamar Vieira Junior published by Todavia came in the Literary Novel category.
Itamar Vieira Junior said of the win, “The last gift was seeing Salvar o fogo win the 2024 Jabuti Award in the Literary Novel category. But since we don’t walk alone, I would like to thank everyone who has been with me on this journey in some way. The book is dedicated to my mother Tereza, who encouraged me to continue even in adversity. By her side, my brothers, always supporting and encouraging me.
The novel which is written in Portuguese comes with the following blurb;
In this new novel, Itamar Vieira Junior reaffirms his position as one of the greatest storytellers in the Portuguese language. In Salvar o fogo, the author from Bahia constructs a narrative in which we become intimate with his characters and are moved by their very particular trajectories. The center of the plot is occupied by Luzia do Paraguaçu, another of his unforgettable creations — a woman who seeks courage as a way to overcome the greatest injustices. Orphaned by his mother, Moisés finds affection in Luzia, stigmatized among the population for her supposed supernatural powers. To earn a living, she becomes a washerwoman at the local monastery and begins to experience a life of profound religious meaning, which leads her to educate Moisés with extreme strictness. Epic and lyrical, with the power to move, enchant, and outrage the reader, Salvar o fogo shows us that the ghosts of a family’s past are often indistinguishable from the shadows of the country itself. With mastery, Itamar Vieira Junior blends the intimate journey of his characters with aspects of Brazilian life. A plot permeated with traumas from colonialism, which remain alive, like a wound that remains open.
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