Premio Oceanos 2024 longlist announced

Angolan, Brazilian, Mozambican, and Cape Verdean writers feature on the longlists for Premio Oceanos 2024 announced on Friday, August 23, 2024.

Oceanos-Prêmio de Literatura em Língua Portuguesa (English: Oceanos-Prize for Literature in the Portuguese Language) is a Brazilian literary award for poetry and prose founded in 2003. In the first years, only work by Brazilian writers was eligible for the Portugal Telecom-sponsored award until 2007 when Portuguese-language works from other countries were considered. Now run by the Oceanos Foundation, in partnership with the Itaú Cultural Foundation and linked to the Brazilian Itaú Bank, it is worth $60,000. Some of its previous winners have been Luís Cardoso, Itamar Vieira Junior, Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, Marília Garcia, and Joaquim Arena.

The 2024 jury for fiction is composed of the Brazilians Carola Saavedra and Cristóvão Tezza; the Portuguese António Araujo and Simão Valente; and the Mozambican Teresa Manjate. In poetry, the Brazilians Ademir Assunção and Luiza Romão; the Portuguese Helena Buescu and Hugo Pinto Santos; and the Mozambican Teresa Noronha. They announced the longlist or semifinalists of 60 texts in fiction and prose, 30 in each category.

The following writers of African descent made the cut;

Fiction

• Baldeação (Editora de Cultura), Luiz Mauricio Azevedo.
• Compêndios para desenterrar nuvens e outros contos (Leya), Mia Couto
• Mata doce (Companhia das Letras), Luciany Aparecida.
• Metal de Sacrifício (Figura de Linguagem), Luiz Mauricio Azevedo.
• Os infortúnios de um governador nos trópicos (Leya), Germano Almeida.
• Outono de carne estranha (Record), Airton Souza

Poetry

• Os desertos (Folheando), de Marcos Samuel Costa.
• Perder o pio a emendar a morte (The Poets and Dragons Society), José Luiz Tavares.
• Rostos desabitados [e] fragmentos do escuro (Gala-Gala), Jeremias F. Jeremias.

The finalists in the two categories, prose and poetry, will be announced in October before the winners – one for poetry and the other for prose, announced in December at a ceremony held at Itaú Cultural. The prize is 300 thousand reais, 150 thousand for each of the winners.

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