The jst of the dstangola / Camões, chaired by Irene Guerra Marques, professor at the Faculty of Arts of the Agostinho Neto University, distinguished in Pepetela's text "not only its timeliness", but also the way in which "irony, criticism is kept young and lucid socio-cultural and intense creativity, which accompanies the advances and setbacks of the Angolan and even African reality, with regard to the reality that we live in the South of the Sahara ".
According to a statement from Leya, the writer's publisher, this is the second distinction of the novel, which received the Correntes d'Escritas Literary Prize in February.
The novel is "a scathing criticism of the abuse of power and totalitarian systems of government disguised as democracies", written with "an intelligent sense of humor, and in which any resemblance to reality is pure coincidence," the editor's note underlined.
Pepetela, artistic name of Artur Carlos Maurício Pestana dos Santos, was born in Benguela in 1941. He graduated in Sociology, in Algiers, during his exile, he was a guerrilla of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), politician and governor. In 1997, he was recognized with the Camões Prize.
The dstangola / Camões literary prize is an initiative of the dstgroup in partnership with Camões - Cooperation and Language Institute, which aims to distinguish, annually and in an alternate way, books published in poetry and prose by artists born in Angola.
The award, worth 15,000 euros, will be delivered in Luanda, on a date yet to be confirmed. The first edition of dstangola / Camões paid tribute to poetry and chose as winner the title "Noite Vertical", by Zetho Cunha Gonçalves.
