Estoril Sol Literary Awards continue in 2022

Faithful to its matrix in promoting Portuguese Literature, Estoril Sol persists in renewing this year the awarding of the Fernando Namora and Agustina Bessa-Luís Literary Awards, in honour of the two great writers, despite the serious and complex problems that Europe faces. , resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

With the launch of the 25th edition of the Fernando Namora Literary Prize and the 15th edition of the Agustina Bessa-Luís Literary Revelation Prize, Estoril Sol thus consolidates a duty of citizenship, understood as a contribution to the appreciation of Letters and Arts, not despite the current unfavourable situation on an international scale.

Remember that, according to the respective regulations, the deadline for receiving the original works for both awards expires on May 31st.

The Fernando Namora Literary Prize, held annually, is reserved for published novels and has a value of 15,000 euros. Remember that it was João Tordo, with his novel “Felicidade”, the winner in 2021.

When choosing “Felicidade”, the jury recorded in the minutes that “it is a novel of emotional and affective formation of a man constituted as a narrator, although without a name that identifies him throughout the book. The dramatism of loneliness of the narrator and protagonist of the novel assumes great intensity and power of involvement in the reader. The gear is also located in a precise but creative plan of realization. The names of the three female figures, Felicidade, Esperança and Angélica, project a symbolism that expands the imaginative process itself”.

Chaired by Guilherme D `Oliveira Martins, the Jury is common to the Agustina Bessa-Luís Revelation Award, which is also instituted again by Estoril Sol, being awarded regularly since 2008.

It is recalled that Estoril Sol eliminated, in 2016, the rule that imposed the age limit of 35 years for candidates, which expanded the scope of the competition. However, it remains mandatory for the competing novel to be unpublished, and by a Portuguese author, “without any published work in the genre”.

The novel that won the Revelation Literary Prize Agustina Bessa-Luís, in 2021, was “Terrinhas”, by Catarina Gomes. The Prize has a value of 10 thousand euros and, under the terms of the Regulation, the winning work will be published by Editora Gradiva, in accordance with the existing protocol with Estoril Sol.

In the minutes, the Jury highlighted that “Terrinhas” is “a novel that, from the point of view of a typical urban woman, confronts the rural and urban worlds. The memory of the parents, who almost religiously go to 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 life. adulthood. The joy and touching tenderness in the assessment of life and death, associated with a fluid and elegant writing, give this novel an indisputable literary reach, which it is important to value and disseminate”.

The Fernando Namora and Revelation Agustina Bessa-Luís Literary Awards will later be joined by the Vasco Graça Moura Award – Cultural Citizenship, in honour of the writer, poet and essayist, completing the cast of this annual Estoril Sol contribution to Letters and Culture.

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