Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins presented Estoril Sol Awards to Maria do Céu Guerra, Carlos Vale Ferraz and Judite Canha Fernandes
In a solemn ceremony, the Estoril Casino Auditorium welcomed the awarding of the Vasco Graça Moura Prize – Cultural Citizenship – to Maria do Céu Guerra, and the Fernando Namora and Agustina Bessa-Luis Literary Awards, established by Estoril Sol, for 2018, respectively. , Carlos Vale Ferraz and Judite Canha Fernandes.
Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins, President of the Estoril Sol Awards Jury, chaired this important event, which was attended by numerous personalities linked to the Arts and Letters.
In a timely frame of the winning works, Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins, recalled that “The Last Widow of Africa” by Carlos Vale Ferraz who won the Fernando Namora Literary Prize “is a remarkable work not only as a revival of a historical period whose echoes they must be remembered, but also because it is an important line of literary creation that enables us to enrich a global and complex vision of a history of many stories. ” Judith Canha Fernandes, who was honored with the Agustina Revelation Bessa Luís Literary Prize, stressed that the winning work, “A Step to the South”, “is a novel based on a geographical and existential triangle, spread over Cape Verde, São Tomé and Azores. . Creole’s linguistic and imaginative records creatively fit into the overall structure of the narrative, contributing to the formatting of a very stimulating literary language. (…) An archipelagic novel that elects Macaronesia as its protagonist in an open and complex relationship in which nature meets the human race. ”
Regarding the Vasco Graça Moura Prize, the President of the Jury said that “Maria do Céu Guerra is a woman of theater and culture, of speech and of creative freedom. It is an example that should be highlighted by persistence, strength, enthusiasm and sensitivity. ” In her words, Maria do Céu Guerra said: “This year was for me a year of awards and recognition. I am grateful to my country for allowing me, albeit often in spite of the state institutions, to have made the career I did. In addition to the theatrical work I had the opportunity to do, successive juries have been highlighting the citizenship component. ”
Already Carlos Vale Ferraz, distinguished with the Fernando Namora Literary Prize, stressed: “Prizes do not make books better, but encourage authors to be better, increase their responsibility. Awards are acts of recognition that contribute to improving society’s relationship with literature. In my case with romance. That is why all who write and publish deserve recognition from society and their peers. It is this recognition that we have received here from the Estoril Sol Society, as well ”.
Judith Canha Fernandes, winner of the Agustina Revelation Literary Award Bessa Luís, said: “An author or author can say nothing more about a book than it contains. That is, I don’t think I can say more about “One Step South” than what is there. Writing has no translation beyond itself. It is a lonely process, a place of one person, facing papers, the computer, words, eventually an idea. Within this perpetual movement it is always present, however, that what is written is not intended to be left to the writer. That once a book is finished, it is no longer ours. This book is no longer mine, I said goodbye to it. He is the one to read it now. ”
At the opening of the ceremony, Estoril Sol’s President, Mário Assis Ferreira, said: “This solemn ceremony is once again common to the three Literary Prizes established at different times by Estoril Sol, and all of them reported to 2018, correspond, in his specificity and patrons, to different universes of the Letters and of the Portuguese cultural life. For this reason alone, it is already gratifying for a company such as Estoril Sol to have persisted in contributing, outside its core business, to boosting Letters, namely fiction or the fine arts, and being rewarded with public recognition for this. continued effort ”.
The bet on Culture and the Show continues to guide Estoril Sol, an original concept that we are proud of and that made a difference compared to what was the practice followed until then. From the Literary Awards to the Art Gallery and the Fine Arts – or to the magazine “Egoísta” and its collection of renowned contributors, distinguished by a vast list of national and international awards -, the panoply of cultural initiatives to which the Estoril Sol is obliged, as matrix of its conceptual model. The promotion of culture is therefore a “watermark” that has been with us for a long time and we want to be faithful ”, concluded Mário Assis Ferreira.
