Angolan poet and historian Ana Paula Tavares was announced on Wednesday, October 8, as the winner of the 2025 Camões Prize, the most important literary award in the Portuguese language. The decision was made during a virtual meeting of the jury, composed of experts from Portugal, Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique, and awards the author €100,000, divided between the Government of Portugal and the National Library Foundation (FBN), linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Culture.

At 72, Tavares is the fifth Angolan author to receive the award, which is given annually by the governments of Brazil and Portugal to writers whose body of work contributes to the dissemination and strengthening of the Portuguese language in the countries of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP).

The jury highlighted the writer’s “fertile and consistent trajectory of aesthetic creation” and the “restoration of dignity to poetry” present in her work. The opinion also emphasized Tavares’ “lyricism without evasive concessions” and the “relevant anthropological dimension in historical perspective” that runs through her poetic and narrative production.

The commission included professors José Carlos Seabra Pereira (University of Coimbra), Ana Mafalda Leite (University of Lisbon), Francisco Noa (Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique), Lúcia Santaella (PUC-SP, Brazil), Arno Wehling (Brazilian Academy of Letters), and writer Lopito Feijó (Angola).

Brazilian Minister of Culture Margareth Menezes said that the choice “celebrates the strength and beauty of Lusophone literature.” According to her, “Ana Paula Tavares’ poetry, woven from memory, resistance, and affection, reveals the power of African and female voices that enrich the cultural heritage of the Portuguese language.”

The president of the National Library Foundation, Marco Lucchesi, emphasized that “the Camões Prize is destined for and dedicated to the Portuguese-speaking world” and that the winner “embodies all the virtues that flow into an ethical commitment,” with attention to issues in Africa, Brazil, and Portugal.

A virtuous path

Born in 1952 in the province of Huíla, Angola, Ana Paula Tavares began her studies in history at the Faculty of Letters of Lubango, now the Higher Institute of Educational Sciences of Huíla. In 1992, she moved to Portugal, where she completed a degree in Literature at the University of Lisbon, as well as a master’s degree in African Literature and a doctorate in Anthropology at the New University of Lisbon. She currently teaches at the Catholic University of Lisbon.

The author of more than ten books covering poetry, chronicles, and novels, Tavares is considered one of the leading voices in contemporary Angolan and Lusophone literature. Among her best-known works are Rites of Passage (1985), The Lake of the Moon (1999), The Head of Salome (2004), and A River Trapped in the Hands (2019).

In 2004, she received the Mário António Poetry Prize from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and, in 2007, the National Prize for Culture and Arts of Angola. Her texts are included in anthologies published in Portugal, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden, consolidating her presence in Portuguese-language literature.

It should be noted that the Camões Prize was established in 1988 by the governments of Brazil and Portugal to recognize authors for their body of work and promote literary creation in Portuguese-speaking countries. The award honors Luís Vaz de Camões, the greatest poet in Portuguese literature, and the diploma is signed by the heads of state of Brazil and Portugal. Since its first edition in 1989, the award has honored 36 authors from five Portuguese-speaking countries.

The winner of the previous edition, in 2024, was Brazilian poet Adélia Prado.

Ígor Lopes, journalist–in Diário da Lagoa

Translated by PBBI-Fresno State.