Lídia Jorge unanimously won the Grand Prize for Novel and Novella 2022 of the Portuguese Writers Association (APE) with the work Misericórdia.

In the minutes put forth by members of the jury responsible for this choice, one can read that Misericórdia is a  “novel of a rare discursive maturity,” which does not cease to “surprise by its apparent simplicity, which requires the reader a certain way of tuning or training capable of allowing him to capture it in the mesh of its discreet complexity.”

Misericórdia, published by D. Quixote, is a “hymn to reading, to literature and to the transforming power of both in human life, but also to the power of literature to lift from the ground the disvalued of time and the common social imaginary,” added the jury.

This is the second time that Lídia Jorge has won the APE Grand Prize after being distinguished for her 2002 novel: O vento assobiando nas gruas, translated to English as The Wind Whistling in the Cranes.

Misericórdia was chosen from a pool of 86 books entered into the competition.

The Grand Prize for Novels and Novels 2022, of the Portuguese Writers’ Association, established in 1982, is supported by the Directorate-General for Books, Archives and Libraries, and has a monetary value of 15,000 euros.

The current edition of the prize also has the support of Grândola Town Hall, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and the Camões Institute.

The jury of this 41st edition was composed of José Manuel de Vasconcelos, Isabel Cristina Rodrigues, Maria de Lurdes Sampaio, Mário Avelar, Paula Mendes Coelho, and Salvato Teles de Menezes.

Last year’s winner was Around the World in Twenty and a half days by Julieta Monginho.

Valter Hugo Mãe, Teolinda Gersão, Hélia Correia, H.G. Cancela, Paulo Varela Gomes, Alexandra Lucas Coelho, Gonçalo M. Tavares, Rui Cardoso Martins, Filomena Marona Beja, Francisco José Viegas, Vasco Graça Moura, Mafalda Ivo Cruz, Lídia Jorge, Maria Velho da Costa, Fernanda Botelho, Rui Nunes, Augusto Abelaira, Mário de Carvalho, Vergílio Ferreira, Helena Marques, José Saramago, Paulo Castilho, João de Melo, Vergílio Ferreira, and David Mourão-Ferreira are other authors with works distinguished with the APE Grand Prize for Novels. 

Agustina Bessa-Luís, António Lobo Antunes, Ana Margarida de Carvalho, Julieta Monginho, and Maria Gabriela Llansol have also received the award twice.

The writer Mário Cláudio has won three Grand Prizes for Novels and Novellas, for Amadeo (1984), Retrato de Rapaz (2014), and Tríptico da Salvação (2020).

In the first edition, the Grand Prize for Novel and Novella was awarded to José Cardoso Pires for Balada da Praia dos Cães, a work published in 1982.

From a LUSA, Portuguese news service story.

Translated to English by the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) through the Azorean-Diaspora Media Alliance, Bruma Publications, and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures at Fresno State and published in Novidades, from Bruma Publications at Fresno State as a community outreach program.