Mia Couto

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In this Portuguese name, the first or maternal family name is Leite and the second or paternal family name is Couto.
Mia Couto
Mia Couto at Fronteiras do Pensamento (2014)
Mia Couto at Fronteiras do Pensamento (2014)
BornAntónio Emílio Leite Couto
5 July 1955
Beira, Mozambique
OccupationBiologist and writer
NationalityMozambican
PeriodPost-colonial Africa
GenreAnimist realism, historical fiction

António Emílio Leite Couto, better known as Mia Couto (born 5 July 1955),[1] is a Mozambican writer. He won the Camões Prize in 2013, the most important literary award in the Portuguese language, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2014.

Life

Early years

Mia Couto was born in the city of

University of Lourenço Marques. During this time, the anti-colonial guerrilla and political movement FRELIMO was struggling to overthrow the Portuguese colonial rule in Mozambique.[citation needed
]

After independence of Mozambique

In April 1974, after the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon and the overthrow of the Estado Novo regime, Mozambique was about to become an independent republic. In 1974, FRELIMO asked Couto to suspend his studies for a year to work as a journalist for Tribuna until September 1975 and then as the director of the newly created Mozambique Information Agency (AIM). Later, he ran Tempo magazine until 1981. His first book of poems, Raiz de Orvalho, was published in 1983; it included texts aimed against the dominance of Marxist militant propaganda.[2] Couto continued working for the newspaper Notícias until 1985 when he resigned to finish his course of study in biology.

Literary works and recognition

Couto is considered one of the most important writers in Mozambique; his works have been published in more than 20 countries and in various languages.[citation needed] In many of his texts, he undertakes to recreate the Portuguese language by infusing it with regional vocabulary and structures from Mozambique, thus producing a new model for the African narrative. Stylistically, his writing is influenced by magical realism, a movement popular in modern Latin American literatures, and his use of language is reminiscent of the Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa, but also deeply influenced by the baiano writer Jorge Amado. He has been noted for creating proverbs, sometimes known as "improverbs", in his fiction, as well as riddles, legends, and metaphors, giving his work a poetic dimension.[3]

An international jury at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair named his first novel, Sleepwalking Land, one of the best 12 African books of the 20th century. In 2007, he became the first African author to win the prestigious Latin Union literary prize, which has been awarded annually in Italy since 1990. Mia Couto became only the fourth writer in the Portuguese language to take home this prestigious award. Currently, he is a biologist employed by the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park while continuing his work on other writing projects.[citation needed]

In 1998, Couto was elected into the

Brazilian Academy of Letters, the first African writer to receive such an honour.[4]

Awards and honours

Books

Compilations in English

References

  1. ^ Groot, Ger (1 September 2016). "Magie in tijden van oorlog" (in Dutch). NRC Handelsblad. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
  2. ^ Chabal, Patrick. Vozes Moçambicanas. Vega: Lisboa, 1994 (274–291).
  3. ^ Coutinho, Maria João. 2008. "The heart is a beach: proverbs and improverbs in Mia Couto's stories". Proceedings of the First Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Proverbs, eds Rui. J. B. Soares and Outi Lauhakangas, 484–489.
  4. ^ ""Re-enchanting the World: The 2014 Neustadt Prize Acceptance Speech" by Mia Couto". World Literature Today. 20 December 2014. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
  5. LA Times
    . Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  6. ^ "Noted Mozambican Author Mia Couto Wins 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature". The Neustadt Prize. 1 November 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  7. ^ Andrade, Sérgio C. (27 May 2013). "Mia Couto é o vencedor do Prémio Camões 2013". Publico. Retrieved 27 May 2013.

Relevant literature

  • de Araújo Teixeira, Eduardo. "O provérbio nas estórias de Guimarães Rosa e Mia Couto." Navegações 8, no. 1 (2015): 57-63.
  • Van Haesendonck, Kristian. "Mia Couto’s Postcolonial Epistemology: Animality in Confession of the Lioness (A Confissão da leoa)." ZOOPHILOLOGICA. Polish Journal of Animal Studies 5 (2019): 297-308.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Mia Couto.

Criticism:

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