Silvana Tavano wins the Oceanos prize with “Resuscitar mammoths”, a novel that reinvents the past and future of her mother

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For Manuel da Costa Pinto, Brazilian curator of the competition, “Resuscitar mammoths” is “a story that addresses in an imaginative and moving way the possibilities of managing time, of redeeming and modifying the past (and therefore the future) through the imagination”. In the running were novels such as “A cegueira do rio”, by the Mozambican Mia Couto, “Mestre dos batuques”, by the Angolan (and GLOBO columnist) José Eduardo Agualusa, and “Vermelho Delicate”, by the Portuguese Teresa Veiga.

The winner of the poetry category was Ana Maria Vasconcelos, from Alagoas, author of “Longarinas” (7Letras), a work which, according to Costa Pinto, “favors the short form to deal with the passage of time and permanence” and “is organized around the minimum and observation”. Among the finalists were works such as “O pito do pango & other poets”, by Fabiano Calixto, “As Graças do Morto”, by

The winners will each receive R$150,000. In total, 3,142 works from 488 different publishers competed for the prize. These books went through three stages of qualification and were read and evaluated by three juries made up of experts from three continents, until reaching the two winners. The Oceanos Prize is organized by Matilde Santos, from Cape Verde, João Fenhane, from Mozambique, Isabel Lucas, from Portugal, and Manuel da Costa Pinto, from Brazil, with the general coordination of Selma Caetano.