And the big winner of the PT Literature award is…
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Cristóvão Tezza, with his book “O filho eterno”, was the winner of one of the top literary awards in Brazil, in terms of recognition by the literary community: The Portugal Telecom Award of Literature in Portuguese Language. António Lobo Antunes shared the second position, ex-aequo with Beatriz Bracher, and Bernardo Carvalho got third. Zeinal Bava was present at the awards ceremony and highlighted the importance of this initiative
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"We are going through extraordinary
times these days and we have never
had such communicating worlds before" |
The 6th edition of the Portugal Telecom Award of Literature in Portuguese Language took place on 29 October in S. Paulo. This is an award “open to Portuguese-speaking authors and one of the most significant symbols of our vision of this ‘land of tomorrow’, the projection of our future together, as people, companies and countries”, according to Zeinal Bava, who was present at the awards ceremony.
Together with the Jabuti Award, the PT Award is recognised as one of the most important awards in Brazil and is granted to the three best books originally written in Portuguese language (novel, tale, chronicle, dramaturgy, biography or autobiography).
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Beatriz Bracher and Cristóvão Tezza, 2nd
and 1st places of the PT Literature
Award in Portuguese Language 2008 |
The 2008 winner of this important award was the S. Catarina-born writer Cristóvão Tezza, with his book “O filho eterno”. The second place was shared by António Lobo Antunes with "Eu hei-de amar uma pedra” and Beatriz Barcher with “Antônio”, and the third place was won by Bernardo Carvalho with “O sol se põe em São Paulo”.
This is the most significant book of my life, a book displaying maturity and it was, no doubt, the most difficult work that I have ever produced” said Cristóvão Tezza as he was acclaimed the winner of the Portugal Telecom Literature Award.
The awards ceremony was presented by journalist Edney Silvestre with a special participation of Fernanda Montenegro, the renowned Brazilian actress, who interpreted fiction texts and poems, from Portuguese and Brazilian authors, such as Fernando Pessoa and Carlos Drummond de Andrade, before the circa 500 invitees at the Fasano House in Sao Paulo.
Shakaf Wine, President, PT Brazil, expressed his gratitude for the integrity and seriousness of all those who worked for the concretion of the award and added that, to compete in equal conditions on the market, Portuguese-speaking countries need to become countries of readers. Portugal’s Minister of Culture, José António Ribeiro, also present at the event, praised the work of the authors and concluded that reading is responsible for “transporting us in terms of time and space”.
Photos - Photografer: Luciana Prezia/ Assistant: Paula Zorzi
At this moment in time when culture of literature in Portuguese language is celebrated, PT’s CEO highlighted that “we are going through extraordinary times and we have never had such communicating worlds before”. There are 250 million people in the world who can speak Portuguese, who originally learn in Portuguese and who make the global heritage richer through the production of content in Portuguese. This Literature Award is “a testimony of Portugal Telecom’s commitment to Portuguese culture and language, honouring merit and innovation”.
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Zeinal Bava, José Antonio Pinto
Ribeiro and Shakhaf Wine | During his intervention, Zeinal Bava stressed PT’s action in the scope of education, once again. “How shall we prepare our minds, the minds of our children and grandchildren for these times that we are going through? I only know one answer: a bet on education. It is where it all starts, where everything is born. (…) There is a place for knowledge, indeed. A place each time more important and central in our development as human beings and as societies. In this quest for knowledge, the generalisation of information technologies, with the growing adoption of communication equipment and the emergence of new habits of media consumption, namely the Internet in the younger segment, constitute pillars of our new world.”
PT has made the largest investments ever carried out by a Portuguese company abroad and “acts in accordance with the interests of our language and cultural legacy. This is the spirit that moves us in knowledge export and in promotion of infrastructure and education tools”, stressed PT’s CEO.
Portugal Telecom assumes itself thus as a “company of ideas and we want to aggregate, promote and stay near people of and with ideas. How shall we do it? With talent, tolerance and technology.”
Finalists of PT Literature Award in Portuguese 2008
The winners of the PT Literature Award in Portuguese Language 2008
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Cristóvão Tezza
'O Filho Eterno'
Publisher: Record |
1st place
Cristóvão Tezza was born in Santa Catarina in 1952, but lives in Curitiba. He has always associated writing with a form of giving sense to reality. His literary course has started very early, when he was still a teenager, but a more detached vision of his country became essential for him as he lived in Portugal right after the 1974 Revolution. A fictionist and university professor in the state of Paraná, he has already published 13 titles ('Trapo', 'O fantasma da infância', 'Aventuras provisórias', 'Breve espaço entre cor e sombra' and 'O fotógrafo', among others). His novel 'O filho eterno', in which biographic matter is superbly captured by fiction, has already been translated to Italian and the Portuguese, French and Spanish editions are under way.
The story begins in the waiting room, in between cigarettes, when the protagonist is about to have his first child. As he is still adapting to this novelty, he discovers that he is about to become the father of a child with Down syndrome. The author describes in this work the difficulties and victories of raising a child with Down syndrome.
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Beatriz Bracher
'António'
Publisher: Editora 34 | 2nd place
In Beatriz Bracher’s third novel, Benjamin, the protagonist, who is about to become a father, discovers a family secret and decides to find out how everything happened. His grandmother, Isabel; Haroldo, a friend of his grandfather’s; and Raul, a friend of his father’s will tell their versions of the facts. Each chapter of the book gives voice to one of the three narrators-characters.
Beatriz Bracher was born in São Paulo in 1961. Holding a degree in Literature, she was one of the founders of 34 Letras magazine and later on, of publisher Editora 24, where she worked from 1992 to 2000. She published the novels 'Azul e dura' (7 Letras, 2002) and ‘Não falei’ (Editora 34, 2004). In 1994, together with Sérgio Bianchi, she wrote the script of film 'Cronicamente inviável' and more recently, with the same director, the script of a novel feature length film, still untitled.
2nd place
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António Lobo Antunes
'Eu hei-de amar uma pedra'
Publisher: Alfaguara/Objetiva | “Eu hei-de amar uma pedra”, 17th novel by António Lobo Antunes, is an excellent example of his way of telling a story, extracted from a verse from Alentejo’s typical singing. The story is there to be read – an elderly man between times: a chest full of photos of family scenes and the rediscovery of the beloved woman – but it is through the omnipresent chest and a river Tagus, which flows simultaneously in Lisbon and Guinea. The author raises a stone, which is covering the past and invites the reader for a trip to the Portuguese cultural imaginary.
António Lobo Antunes was born in 1942, in Lisbon. He graduated in Medicine, with a Psychiatry specialisation, and participated as lieutenant and medicine doctor of the Portuguese Army in Angola, in the last years of war in that country, between 1970 and 1973. The war experience marked his first three books profoundly 'Memória de elefante', 'Os cus de Judas' and 'Conhecimento do inferno'. As the author of a vast and prized work, renowned worldwide, Lobo Antunes also wrote the following hit novels: 'Boa tarde às coisas aqui em baixo', 'O manual dos inquisidores', 'Tratado das paixões da alma' and 'Exortação aos crocodilos' (winner of the Grand Prize for Romance and Novel granted by the Portuguese Writers’ Association in 1999). 2007 saw him receive the Camões Literature Prize, with ‘Eu hei-deamar uma pedra’, the greatest honour awarded to a living Portuguese writer.
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Bernardo Carvalho
'O sol se põe em São Paulo'
Publisher: Companhia das Letras | 3rd place
In Japan, during World War 2, a love triangle involves Michiyo, Jokichi e Masukichi – a girl from a good family, the son of an industrialist and a kyogen (Japanese comical theatre) actor. At first sight, this is all that Setsuko, the owner of the Japanese restaurant, has to tell to the narrator of 'O sol se põe em São Paulo’, the new novel by Bernardo Carvalho. But the plot gets rapidly more complex, as Setsuko’s story goes beyond desire, humiliation and resentment from love and is related with the most awful times of contemporaneous history – both in Japan and in Brazil.
Bernardo Carvalho, born in 1960 in Rio de janeiro, is a writer and a journalist. He was the editor of the essay supplement ‘Folhetim’ and correspondent, in Paris and New York of 'Folha de S.Paulo' (the newspaper in which he writes a weekly column on literature). His first book was 'Aberração de 1993' a compilation of tales. With novel ‘Mongólia’, he won the APCA Award (São Paulo Art Critics Association, 2003 edition) and with novel ‘Nove Noites’, the Portugal Telecom Literature Award 2003.
Find out more about the PT Literature Award in Portuguese Language at http://www.premioportugaltelecom.com.br/
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