The Camões Prize in 2015 was on Wednesday unanimously awarded the writer Helia Correia, the Portuguese 11 to receive what is considered the most important literary award for the Portuguese-speaking authors. The prize, worth one hundred thousand euros, was announced at the São Clemente Palace, seat of the Portuguese Consulate in Rio de Janeiro, where he met the jury.
Helia Correia succeeds the poet, historian and memoirist Brazilian Alberto Costa e Silva, who won the award in 2014, and his choice back to leave Portugal and Brazil tied with 11 writers from each country in the winners list .
It was the first time that the name of Helia Correia appeared candidate for the Camões Prize, in 2010, the Brazilian Gullar she was in contention until the end. The jury that chose Helia Correia joined two Portuguese (the poet and literary critic Pedro Mexia and essayist Rita Marnoto, Faculty of Arts, University of Coimbra), two Brazilians (the poet and essayist Antonio Carlos Secchin and the writer Affonso Romano Sant’Anna) and two representatives of the African Portuguese-speaking countries:. the essayist STP Innocence Mata, of the Faculty of Arts, University of Lisbon, and the Mozambican writer Mia Couto, Camões Prize winner in 2013
The poet and literary critic Pedro Mexia, for the first time was part of the jury, on the phone from Rio de Janeiro told Publico that the decision “was extremely easy.” Although Helia Correia “is not as obvious name in Brazil as in Portugal,” after being released to the discussion, “and taking into account that for Brazilian judges the name was already on the table from a previous vote, it was relatively peaceful. ” Even those who did not have it on your list, “did not put any objection.” The decision was not only faster because there were some logistical problems – the writer Mia Couto participated in the meeting via Skype and happened some connection problems.
One of the reasons that tipped the jury selection was its versatility in terms of genres and styles. Helia Correia writes romance, novel, short story, drama and poetry and his books are very different from each other. “There are writers who always write the same book. Helia Correia, with your imagination, is quite different books each other, “explains Pedro Mexia. Important was also “dialogue that the author establishes with the traditions: with classical antiquity, especially Greek” and “an imaginary that’s not quite magic, is telluric, also of fairies and ghosts,” said the critic. “There is also pointed out in the literature side of her and references to contemporary literature, ranging from a character in José Saramago up to the English literature books, the Victorians, the Brontë sisters and the Pre-Raphaelites.”
From ancient Greece to the Brontë
For Francis Vale, who has edited the work of the writer Clock Water since 1983 – “almost since There is the publisher “- is an unexpected but deserved award. “The Hélia is one of the writers who best handles the Portuguese language, with a very diverse work – novels, poetry, dramatic works, short stories, children’s literature,” he says. “The Portuguese it is very fruitful. It has its own style, with a great precision of language. Every sentence has the exact number of syllables. It takes the writing accuracy at this point.” Apart from that “can create very unique characters that will be in Portuguese literature,” notes the editor.
The author made his debut with The Dividing the Waters in 1981, and The number of Live in 1982 The Eternal House ( Maximum Literature Award, 2000), Lillias Fraser (Prize for Fiction of the Pen Club, 2001, and Prize D. Dinis, 2002) bastardy (Literature Award Maximum, 2006) and Illness (Prize of Inês de Castro Foundation, 2010) are some titles of your bibliography. Twenty steps and other tales was published last year ( Great Story Prize Camilo Castelo Branco 2014).
“It is very innovative in writing, but linked to the best literary tradition. It has influences of Camilo Castelo Branco, Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights , and Greek classics in relation to dramatic texts . Incidentally, Helia, when we see it, often seems freshly arrived from Ancient Greece “continues the editor.
The Clock Water plans to reissue this year some works chosen Helia Correia in hardcover – a collection that includes Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde and Kafka – and novels The Dividing the Waters , sum and Villa Celeste . The author currently working on a new novel.
“It’s not because of the prizes that the edict Hélia. But I always edited unconditionally. I just did it with another author, Rui Nunes. I told them I would publish everything to write. it would publish without reading. They are perfectly exceptional cases, “says Francisco Valley.
” How cool! “. Maybe it was to write, but that’s how the essayist Rosa Maria Hammer reacted to the news of Helia Correia won the Camões Prize. Jury prize in 2011, when it was awarded to Manuel António Pina, professor of the Faculty of Arts, University of Porto says this “is a very well-deserved award,” and that makes her “very happy.”
In the work of Helia Correia, which more seduces Rosa Maria Hammer is how the author “articulates a narrative register with poetic tones.” A written “hybrid” through which “achieves escape from realism, but never fail to keep a very direct attention to the world we live in,” need essayist who think “pretty much” how Helia Correia “articulates fantasy with the circumstances of our lives. “
Example particularly happy this” very effective link between inactual and the present, between the local and the universal “is defending Rose Hammer, the poetry book Third Misery , which Helia Correia published in 2012 and received the literary prize Chains d’writings. “On a day like today, where we hope that Europe solve the problem of Greece, the text Helia Correia anticipates what is happening and draws attention to the need to resolve as a problem of all of us, of our draft world as humans. “
Third Misery , the author” can show how what is our tradition and our culture allows us to understand the complexity of the contemporary world, while giving us the human safeguard instruments, “concludes the essayist.
Helia Correia came from poetry, let it but carries it into everything you write. In the tales – the latest volume Twenty Steps and Other Tales (Clock Water 2014) and novels – the last was Illness – will be contaminated by that experience and such faith in literature. In the tale The Lady Single , the protagonist believe that as believing that once you teach a girl to read and write she can finally be “closed in beauty.” Worth all the effort. Writing Helia Correia is capable of this effect, despite the restlessness that conveys:. The almost comforting closing
It is an even more effective effect the clarity of sentences and enormous power imaging. “Lizzie went to abandoned behind the door that served as a screen and returned dressed boy. He picked up the hair on the nape. Showing legs and it produced a curious effect asexual. Gabriel stepped forward and began to take care of the figure that spoke, not in the draft paper, but on the screen. The male characters were already very advanced. He had posed for silly. The Pre-Raphaelites provoked situations of assistance in that existed alongside the display, sincerity. “
It is a symbolic passing of Illness that carries many brands of Helia Correia, one author who next, the environment and the language of English writers such as Iris Murdoch, but also of Rossetti’s Painting, John Everett and Elizabeth Siddal who inspired precisely in writing Illness to create the character Lizzie someone between love and illness, salvation or damnation.
Lizzie as Lillias are exemplary characters. Two women between the force and the pathos , conditions that characterize many of the women who Hélia created in his fiction. “I see death -. Lillias said” It was a power that no one wanted to anticipate the end. A simple phrase that carries all the human tragedy, which raises the question about the condition of men on earth. Gently it is to where the writing Helia Correia almost always leads: to the essence.
A free childhood
Helia Correia was born in Lisbon in 1949, but grew up in Mafra, Land maternal family. “My childhood and all my group of friends was in some special way,” says the PUBLIC, explaining that her father was an anti-fascist who had been arrested even before she was born and has always lived between opposition people the Salazar regime. “We had an extremely progressive education, very equal, and nothing sexist, completely out of the normal time education,” he says.
But this childhood “very happy, very free and creative” coexisted with the “absolute terror “it was” the threat of PIDE, of parents being arrested, of not being able to speak, to be precise hide things. “
In addition to being tolerant, the parents of Helia Correia were readers. “There was a strong literary presence in my house: I remember my parents discuss because my mother was Camillian and my father queirosiano”
But it was one of her friends, this group of children. Opposition mafrenses, which made an early reader. “It was a fascinating be beautiful,” he says. Four years older than the future writer, was that she was a teacher when the group, in the wettest and coldest days, met in the attic of one of them to play to schools. And it was a teacher as competent, even to pretend that the four years Hélia learned to read.
From there began to “get their hands on all that was book” and read things that do not They were particularly suitable for their age. “Even today I have a horror of Victor Hugo, because I read The Man Who Laughs and it gave me fear, is part of my fears.”
There was none too pleased when the six years, the family doctor has diagnosed exhaustion, had to withdraw him all the hand reach of the books, and convinced his father that the small Hélia could not go to school this year. “To make me the hassle, climbed to a school the balcony and watched the lessons of a teacher who always had an open living room window.”
Completed in Mafra what today would be the 9th year He finished his high school studies in Lisbon and graduated in Romance Philology. It’s early in their college attendance, common 18 years, which began to publish poems in the literary supplements of time as the School Everyday Lisbon , coordinated by Mario Castrim .
Although it began with poetry, and you can argue that while fiction writer, never ceased to be a poet, was as prosadora that gained notoriety and critical recognition. He debuted in 1981 with The Dividing the Waters , and throughout the eighties published, and The Little Death / This eternal Corner , a book of poems socks his team mate Jaime Rocha – pen name of journalist Rui Ferreira e Sousa – five volumes of fiction, including The number of the Living (1982) and the novel Montedemo ( . 1983), usually approximated works of magical realism
The author herself does not reject this affiliation – “I will not ignore the importance that had the South American magical realism – but stresses that he never had” a draft writing “. And his written witness other obvious passions, the Brontë sisters – “Emily Brontë is a person of my house, lives with me – the English Pre-Raphaelites. “They are people who feel very intimate, more than many living my daily life.”
From the 90s, came to join his fictional creation various theatrical works, is already in the XXI century in 2001, which publishes the one that is perhaps his most popular book, Lillias Fraser , whose story takes place between 1746 and 1762 between Scotland and Portugal, covering the earthquake of Lisbon, which leads to the protagonist flee to Mafra. The book won the fiction prize of the Pen Club.
The return to poetry
And in 2012, Helia Correia staged a comeback quite extraordinary poetry with The Third Poverty , a book that is a single long poem in several parts, and reading this in the light of the classical Greece lesson, suggesting that “The third is this misery, today. / A who no longer hear or question. / A who do not remember “.
The author says that, interestingly, the PUBLIC contributed unwittingly to have written this book. “They invited me to write a poem for a poetry page that the newspaper had and I agreed since the poem came out [as came to pass] in the day that would be a great manifestation of indignation.” It turns out that “left a huge poem, which did not fit on a page” and had to write another. And he hands with The Third Poverty , “not knowing what you do.”
A poem evident today, given how is evolving the Greek situation but that the writer can not now speak. “Anger takes me all the words.”
As for the Camões Prize, says it was “a very beautiful gift” and “a big surprise”, and that even more appreciated to come to a jury “Where there are people who I admire a lot,” but will also saying that did little “by the Portuguese prestige” and that “there would be much more suitable names, people who have what we can call a literary career.” Not to be ironic, just think that his relationship with writing is so natural that it can be worth is not your merit. “It’s like premiassem me for having brown eyes”
Since the Camões Prize was inaugurated in 1989 -. Year that won the Portuguese poet Miguel Torga – were chosen four authors of countries African Portuguese-speaking (not counting the Angolan Luandino Vieira who refused): Mozambican José Craveirinha in 1991, and the aforementioned Mia Couto, the Angolan Pepetela in 1997, and the Cape Verdean Armenian Vieira in 2009.
Among Torga and the author of Montedemo (1983) or Lilias Fraser (2001) also received the Camões Prize Portuguese authors Virgil Ferreira (1992), José Saramago (1995), Eduardo Lourenço (1996), Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen (1999), Eugénio de Andrade (2001) Maria Velho da Costa (2002), Agustina Bessa-Luis (2004), António Lobo Antunes (2007) and Manuel António Pina (2011).
The Brazilian winners list includes João Cabral de Melo Neto (1990), Rachel de Queiroz (1993), Jorge Amado (1994), Antonio Candido (1998), Autran Dourado (2000), Rubem Fonseca (2003), Lygia Fagundes Telles (2005), João Ubaldo Ribeiro (2008), Gullar (2010), Dalton Trevisan (2012) and Alberto da Costa e Silva (2014).
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