Writer Mário de Carvalho received this Saturday, 19 September, the Grand Prix of Literature – Chronicle and Literary Dispersed, in Loulé.
The ceremony took place in the Municipal Assembly room with reduced capacity, due to Covid-19's prevention rules.
“What I heard in the barrel of apples” was the work distinguished in this 5th edition, in which the author manifests his facet as a chronicler. This is a selection of his best chronicles published in the 80s and 90s, in Público and Jornal de Letras.
In order to create narrative coherence, the editor (Porto Editora) chose to group the different chronicles into four acts, representing the four facets of the writer: the fictionist, the citizen, the communicator and the memoirist.
In the words of Francisco Belard, these chronicles are «witnesses to a wide field of subjects, approaches, dimensions and styles, through ages and places».
Surprised with this distinction, Mário de Carvalho underlined that «this prize represented a sudden flash of joy and also of hope, as it meant that it was worth taking these paths one day».
This book portrays "day-to-day things, from newspapers, knickknacks, glimpses of passing time, what was heard here and there, like that young character who listened to the pirates, hidden in the barrel of the ship's apples."
In an intervention in which he addressed his work since, in 1981, he launched his first book, “Contos da Sétima Esfera”, Mário de Carvalho also spoke of an important reference in his writing, «António Aleixo, the genius improviser, that great popular poet who is part of my training».
Carlos Albino Guerreiro, as spokesman for the jury that also included José Cândido D'Oliveira Martins and Paula Mendes Coelho, listed the reasons why it was unanimously decided to award the prize to this work, among the more than 30 to contest.
«Since the quality of the chronicles that comprise it. In them, Mário de Carvalho combines some of his best qualities as a fictionist, short story writer, chronicler, master of irony, one of the writers who best dominates the lexicon and semantics of the Portuguese language, an attentive thinker of life, of the present, of politics. We were sensitive to his mastery,” he said.
In turn, José Manuel Mendes, president of the Portuguese Writers Association, a XNUMX-year partner institution of the Municipality of Loulé in this initiative, highlighted the qualities of the awardee. «The award was given to a great Portuguese writer, one of the greatest writers of our time. Author who renews himself from book to book, not just in genres but in writing procedures themselves», he said.
This responsible recalled the objectives of this initiative, which include the «recognition of the work that is done from the written or even oral media, by several authors who have in the chronicle, a genre with a long tradition in our country since almost immemorial times and, in this recognition, also affirm the incentive for the chronicles that have been scattered throughout newspapers and magazines to be gathered in volume, reworked and republished».
In this context, he highlighted the fact that this is already a «Grand Prix of reference at the scale of the country» in terms of the chronicle genre.
In the same logic, Loulé mayor Vítor Aleixo guaranteed that «the prize is here to stay», highlighting the «great names of Portuguese Literature» who have already conquered it: José Tolentino Mendonça (2016), Rui Cardoso Martins (2017), Mário Cláudio (2018) ) and Pedro Mexia (2019).
«The craft of writing is appreciated in this Municipality, the aim is to publicize the beauty of the constructions that the word allows. We believe that culture is a tool that can build us all in a much more human way», stressed the mayor.
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