“Revolution” by Hugo Gonçalves wins the Fernando Namora Literary Prize

With the novel “Revolution” (“Revolução”) writer Hugo Gonçalves was the winner of this year’s edition of the Fernando Namora Literary Prize, established by Estoril Sol, with a monetary value of 15 thousand euros.

The Jury, chaired by Guilherme D ‘Oliveira Martins, defined the winning work as “a novel that delves into a recent period of Portuguese history, namely, the last years of the dictatorship and the first years of democracy.”

In the minutes, the jury states: “With a direct, fluid, and communicative style and a language that aligns with the expression of the time and its social actors, ‘Revolution’ is a book that imposes itself literarily, thanks to the way it connects loose ends of recent Portuguese history, while always maintaining the narrative design of contradictory, heroic or tragic characters, strong or weak, whose profiles challenge and comment on the current readers of the novel and their respective ideological positions.”

The Jury also considered that Hugo Gonçalves’ novel “is a book that approaches testimony, but where, too, there coexists a great fascination with the richness of human nature itself.”

Several dozens of works applied for the award, with the shortlist including, besides “Revolution” by Hugo Gonçalves, the novels by Sérgio Luis de Carvalho, “The Dance of the Mad”; by Rodrigo Guedes de Carvalho, “The Five Mothers of Serafim”; and by Madalena Sá Fernandes, “Rudder.”

Writer and journalist Hugo Gonçalves was born on July 9, 1976, in Sintra. He is the author of several novels and was already a finalist for the Fernando Namora Literary Prize in 2019 with the work “Son of the Mother.” The same book was also a finalist for the P.E.N. Portuguese Club Narrative Prize (or novelistic). Published under Companhia das Letras are the works “God Homeland Family” (semi-finalist for the Oceanos Prize) and “The Heart of Men.”

He studied Social Communication at ISCSP and made his debut as a journalist, joining the founding team of the magazine Focus. In 2000, he received the Revelation Prize from the Portuguese Press Club for the report “Esto es el fin del Mundo,” about the floods in Venezuela, in December 1999.

Screenwriter for the series “Rabo de Peixe” (Netflix), throughout his career, he was a correspondent for various Portuguese publications in New York, Madrid, and Rio de Janeiro, where he worked as a literary editor.

An award-winning journalist, he collaborated with Expresso, Visão, Jornal de Notícias, Diário Económico, and the magazine Sábado. At the Diário de Notícias, he signed the columns “Postcards from the Tropics” and “Typewriter.” He is one of the creators of the podcast “Sem Barbas na Língua.”

Chaired by Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins, the Jury of this 27th edition of the Fernando Namora Literary Prize was also composed of José Manuel Mendes, from the Portuguese Writers Association, Manuel Frias Martins, from the Portuguese Association of Literary Critics, Maria Carlos Gil Loureiro, from the General Directorate of Books, Archives, and Libraries, Ana Paula Laborinho, Liberto Cruz, and José Carlos de Vasconcelos, invited in their capacities, and Dinis de Abreu, from Estoril Sol.

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