On Saturday, April 23, World Book Day, the poet Luís Quintais received the António Ramos Rosa literary prize for his work “O Vidro”, in a ceremony that took place at the Municipal Library of Faro.
The session, which had not been held for five years, served at the same time to celebrate a little bit of the “world of free freedom” and the “free word”, so dear to the late patron of the library, the Farense poet António Ramos Rosa, who gives name to the poetry award.
The ceremony also served the mayor of Faro to announce good news: that, thanks to an agreement with the Millennium BCP Foundation, an entity represented by Fernando Nogueira, sponsorship is guaranteed for the next three editions of this competition, which has already awarded great names in national poetry, such as Fernando Echevarria, Fernando Guimarães , Nuno Júdice and João Rui de Sousa.
The mayor Rogério Bacalhau was satisfied with the re-launch of the award, noting that “we have fulfilled an important objective for the reaffirmation of the municipality's cultural strength, as is our obligation as mayors in this district capital, always so demanding from the point of view of the cultural habits".
This time, the prize went to Luís Quintais, whom Gastão Cruz, a member of the jury, referred to as “one of the best Portuguese poets today”. In fact, in Luís Quintais “we find one of the surest voices in the new Portuguese poetry and we are confronted with a masterful rhythmic glow and with a visit to some of the paradigmatic places in the author's poetry. Glazing, splinters, scratches, violence and history, “O Vidro” alludes to fragments by Anna Calvi, António Damásio, Edmond Jabès, Fernando Pessoa, Martin Amis and TS Eliot”.
The Award jury was constituted by António Carlos Cortez, poet and literary critic, Gastão Cruz, poet, essayist and literary critic, and Pedro Ferré, vice-rector of the University of Algarve and professor at FCHS-Ualg.
The Prize, worth 5000 euros, was highly sponsored by the Millennium BCP Foundation and supported by Delta Cafés, ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal, Turismo de Portugal, Hotel Faro, Tertúlia Algarvia and Jornal de Letras, Artes e Ideias.
To all these entities, the jury and all the competitors in the António Ramos Rosa Literary Prize, the Municipality of Faro leave a word of thanks for your participation. Next year, there's definitely more.
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