In a statement distributed to the media, the organizers stressed that the result of the initial stage of registration of the works presented the greatest diversity of nationalities of all editions and indicates that the publishing market has creatively faced the challenges imposed by the covid-19 pandemic.
In this context, the 2021 edition of the Oceans Award will also make the first mapping of the literatures in Portuguese language.
In all, the Oceans Prize received 1835 works published in 10 countries - Angola, Austria, Brazil, Cape Verde, Germany, Spain, the United States, Mozambique, Portugal and the United Kingdom - from a total of 337 publishers from Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, the United States, France, Mozambique and Portugal, with a "considerable increase in the number of authored editions."
The complete lists of competing works and jury members for the first stage will be available on the Oceans website as of Monday, May 3.
According to the organizers, a significant finding of this edition was the increase, by more than 100 percent over last year, in the number of authored editions, representing 18.6 percent of the total entries.
"The rise of 'self-publishing' platforms for books, on which it is possible to publish by 'request', such as Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and the Authors' Club, combined with sales on 'e-commerce' platforms, explain part of this fact. The lack of social activities during the pandemic may also have contributed to the increase of self-publishing and delivery sales," reads the statement.
Oceans 2021 also featured the greatest diversity of nationalities of all editions with authors from Angola, Argentina, Brazil, Cape Verde, China, France, Haiti, Germany, India, Italy, Mozambique, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Timor-Leste and Venezuela all writing and publishing originally in Portuguese.
"It is important to note, through the record of these entries, that art and culture and, in particular, books and literature have given their response by offering a powerful space of welcome during the pandemic we are living," stressed the director of Itaú Cultural, Eduardo Saron, one of the institutions sponsoring the award.
"This also demonstrates the importance that society, publishers and writers, companies and governments, stand together even more so that literary production can be ever closer to the population, including with more accessible prices," he added.
Besides the selection process of the works that will be awarded, Oceans 2021 will also make the first mapping of the literatures in Portuguese language.
The result of a partnership between the Vale Cultural Institute and Itaú Cultural, this year the unprecedented mapping of literature in the Portuguese language will increase knowledge of the complexity and diversity of the literary production of the member states of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP).
The organizers explained that in the first stage, 32 literature professors - among the total of 95 jurors who evaluate the works submitted to the Oceanos award - will be responsible for mapping the literary production of 2020, based on thematic and aesthetic aspects of the set of 1835 registered works.
In the next stage, the data obtained will be collated and processed by specialists. The result will be shared among actors in the cultural, publishing and book chains, such as cultural institutes, universities, publishers, booksellers and official bodies of the CPLP countries.
"The main objective of the Mapping of Portuguese Language Literatures is to build a collection that is not only bibliographic, but also documental, of public utility, that can generate content for cultural institutions, public and private, and users in general," stressed the Oceanos organizers.
The mapping also aims to encourage research, studies and cultural policies that will contribute to a greater understanding of the proximities and distances between the various literatures in Portuguese language, in the current context.
Regarding the award, its evaluation process will be carried out in three stages.
In the first stage, the evaluation jury elects the 50 semi-finalists among the competitors and chooses, by voting, the members of the subsequent juries (intermediate and final stages).
In the second stage, the intermediate jury will select 10 finalists among the 50 semi-finalists elected by the previous jury.
Finally, in the third stage, the final jury will define the three winners among the 10 finalists.
All the books entered compete against each other, regardless of literary genre. The three prizes together involve a global value of 250 thousand reais (38.5 thousand euros, at the current exchange rate): 120 thousand reais (18.4 thousand euros), for the first place; 80 thousand reais (12, 3 thousand euros), for the second; and 50 thousand reais (7.7 thousand euros), for the third.
The curators for this edition are the linguist Adelaide Monteiro, from Cape Verde, the writer and journalist Isabel Lucas, from Portugal, and the journalist Manuel da Costa Pinto, from Brazil, with the coordination of the cultural manager Selma Caetano.
In addition to the sponsorship of Banco Itaú and the Directorate-General of Books, Archives and Libraries (DGLAB), from Portugal, Oceanos 2021 now has a partnership with the Vale Cultural Institute.
This year, the award continues with the support of Itaú Cultural, responsible for managing the project, and the Ministry of Culture and Creative Industries of Cape Verde, with the institutional support of the CPLP.
