Mozambican essay writer Mia Couto won the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature, for the French edition of the trilogy “As Areias do Imperador”, published this year in France, with translation by Elisabeth Monteiro Rodrigues, today announced the Swiss foundation.
The prize jury recognized “the exceptional quality of writing” by Mia Couto, who subtly combines “orality and literary and epistolary narration, tales, fables, dreams and beliefs, within the historical reality of Mozambique, at the end of the 19th century , in the fight against Portuguese colonization ”.
“Without any Manichaeism, the author strives for empathy with the protagonists, who are confronted with the inhumanity of the war, attributing an epic strength to them, in keeping with the rich African nature”, concluded the jury, chaired by Vera Michalski French essayist Benoît Duteurtre, writers Alicia Giménez Bartlett, from Spain, and Siri Hustvedt, from the United States, Ukrainian novelist Andrei Kourkov, Polish poet Tomasz Rozycki, in addition to authors Carsten Jesten, from Canada, and French rapper Jul.
