The Premio Oceanos 2025 semi-finalists were announced in São Paulo, Brazil, on Tuesday, August 26, 2025.
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 works by Brazilian writers were 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.
From the 3,142 books submitted by 488 publishers by authors from 18 different nationalities for this year’s edition first selections were revealed on Wednesday, April 16. The semi-finalists selected on Tuesday include the following writers and poets of African descent;
Fiction (short stories, novels, chronicles)
- A cegueira do rio, Mia Couto, Caminho, novel, Moçambique
- Mestre dos Batuques, José Eduardo Agualusa, Planeta do Brasil e Quetzal, Angola
- O Livro Que Me Escreveu, Mário Lúcio Sousa, Dom Quixote, Cabo Verde
Poetry
- O cofre secreto das minhas emoções, Francisco Ângelo Cassoma, Atlântico, Angola
- Os sonhos nunca são velhos, João Melo, Inmensa Editorial, Angola
- Sonata de uma Nação Vagabunda, Mudungazi, Kulera, Moçambique
In the next stage, two new juries elected will evaluate the works and select the finalists in each category, who will be announced in October.
Finally, in the third stage, after the finalists are known, two new juries, also elected by the first jury, elect the two winners – one for poetry and the other for prose, in November.
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