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One of the most renowned voices in contemporary Portuguese literature, author of novels, short stories, essays, poetry and chronicles, Lídia Jorge, aged 79, is the winner of this year’s edition of the Pessoa Prize.
Writing about women, the colonial war and historical memory, with works such as O Dia dos Prodígios, A Costa dos Murmúrios and Misericórdia, earned Lídia Jorge several awards in Portugal and abroad.
An author of great international prestige, she occupies a prominent place in contemporary Portuguese fiction. His works have been translated in many countries, such as France, Germany, Holland, Italy and the United States.
Distinguished with numerous awards and distinctions, this Wednesday, on the island of São Miguel, Lídia Jorge received the title of doctor ‘honoris causa’ in Literature from the University of the Azores. The writer argued that literature and philosophy continue to be “pillars of knowledge and the search for essential truth”.
Africa and the Colonial War
Lídia Jorge was born in Boliqueime, in the Algarve, and studied in Faro, at the Liceu Nacional, where she began to gain a taste for literature and theater.
Later she moved to Lisbon and graduated in Romance Philology, and was a teacher in various parts of the country, in Angola and Mozambique. He lived through the most troubled years of the Colonial War in Africa. His passage through the African continent was one of the greatest contributions to his literary creation.
In the 90s he taught at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon. He was also a member of the High Authority for Social Communication and was part of the General Council of the University of Algarve.
In 2021, she was appointed by the President of the Republic to the Council of State.
Invited by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to chair the organizing committee for this year’s June 10th celebrations, Lídia Jorge proposes that the Algarve region, where she is from, be the starting point to revisit the History of Portugal and raise awareness of the current challenge of immigration. For the writer, words are fundamental to understanding the past and building peace.
The first novel and those that followed
Lídia Jorge made her debut in 1980 with the novel “O Dia dos Prodígios”, the allegory of a backward country, liberated by the April Revolution.
She is the author of the novels “O Cais das Merendas” (1982), “Notícia da Cidade Silvestre” (1984), “A Última Dona” (1992), “O Jardim Sem Limites” (1995), “O Vale da Paixão” (1998), “O Vento Assobiando nas Gruas” (2002), “Combateremos a Sombra” (2007), “A Noite das Mulheres Cantoras” (2011), “Os Memoráveis” (2014) and “Estuário” (2018).
She has already been distinguished with the dst Grand Prize for Literature (2019), the Vergílio Ferreira Prize (2015) from the University of Évora, the Portuguese-Spanish Culture Prize (2014), the International Literature Prize from the Günter Grass Foundation (2006), the Grand Prize for Novel from the Portuguese Association of Writers, the Correntes d’Escritas Prize (2002), the Jean Monet Prize for European Literature (2000) and the D. Diniz da Casa de Mateus Prize (1998), among other awards.
The Pessoa Prize and the winners
The Pessoa Prize, founded by Francisco Pinto Balsemão in 1987, is an initiative of and from . It has a value of 70 thousand euros and “aims to highlight the Portuguese personality that, each year, stands out in the artistic, cultural or scientific life of the country”.
This year’s jury is made up of Francisco Pedro Balsemão (President), Paulo Macedo (Vice-President), Ana Pinho, Ana Tostões, António Barreto, Clara Ferreira Alves, Diogo Lucena, Emílio Rui Vilar, José Luís Porfírio, Maria Manuel Mota, Pedro Norton, Rui Magalhães Baião, Rui Vieira Nery, Viriato Soromenho-Marques.
This is the 39th edition of the Pessoa Prize. The list of former winners is made up of the following names:
1987 – José Mattoso
1988 – António Ramos Rosa
1989 – Maria João Pires
1990 – Lead
1991 – Cláudio Torres
1992 – António and Hanna Damásio
1993 – Fernando Gil
1994 – Herbert Helder
1995 – Vasco Graça Moura
1996 – João Lobo Antunes
1997 – José Cardoso Pires
1998 – Eduardo Souto Moura
1999 – Manuel Alegre and José Manuel Rodrigues
2000 – Emanuel Nunes
2001 – João Bénard da Costa
2002 – Manuel Sobrinho Simões
2003 – José Joaquim Gomes Canotilho
2004 – Mário Cláudio
2005 – Luís Miguel Cintra
2006 – António Câmara
2007 – Irene Flunser Pimentel
2008 – João Luís Carrilho da Graça
2009 – D. Manuel Clemente
2010 – Maria do Carmo Fonseca
2011 – Eduardo Lourenço
2012 – Richard Zenith
2013 – Maria Manuel Mota
2014 – Henrique Leitão
2015 – Rui Chafes
2016 – Frederico Lourenço
2017 – Manuel Aires Mateus
2018 – Miguel Bastos Araújo
2019 – Tiago Rodrigues
2020 – Elvira Fortunato
2021 – Tiago Pitta e Cunha
2022 – João Luís Barreto Guimarães
2023 – José Tolentino Mendonça
2024 – Luís Tinoco
