“There's a gastronomic theater show I want to produce, so maybe I'll use the prize money to help produce that play. It will be a good help”. This is how Maria de Fátima Mártires, great winner of the Santos Stockler Literary Prize, worth 10 thousand euros, reacted, when questioned by the Sul Informação about what to do with the amount.
The soap opera “Sol e Sal”, by Joana Abundâncio, pseudonym of Maria de Fátima Mártires, was the winner of this award given by the Lagoa Chamber, which was delivered at a ceremony held at Quinta do Arvad, last Saturday.
This is the first time that Fátima Mártires, 51, born in Portimão, a teacher very connected to theater and puppetry, has written a soap opera. «Writing for theater is easier for me, it has more lines, more interaction between the characters. But I decided to write this and thought: why not send and compete?». It was a good thought, you see.
This year, Fátima Mártires returned to the school where she works, Ferreiras (Albufeira), where she will mainly teach her beloved theater. But, as in the last school year, she will still be one of the teacher trainers of the Aesthetic and Artistic Education Program, in the area of Dramatic Expression / Theater, promoted at national level by the Directorate-General for Education.
And what story does the soap opera “Sol e Sal” tell? «It tells the story of Tia Maria, a person who lives in the countryside, at a time when everything was used and reused. It speaks of the true sustainability of people who live in and out of the countryside, who learn to get by and survive with what they have, without waste or modernity. Now, there is a lot of talk about “sustainability”, but often, to try to appease consciences somewhere, other things are done. Just look at what is happening with electric cars and their batteries, which are creating so many serious problems for us», explained the author. Anyone who wants to read the book will still have to wait, in principle until next January, when the work will be launched by the Câmara de Lagoa.
The choice of the soap opera “Sol e Sal” was a “decision taken unanimously” by the award jury, which met on 27 July.
The choice is due, among other aspects, to the treatment of the theme «Lagoon, sustainable city», developed, according to the jury, «in an intelligent, straightforward way, with some humour, in a coherent and cohesive text, escaping from the easiness and commonplace, and shrewdly criticizing the political and economic exploitation of “green values”».
The jury also considered that the narrator presents a sustainable past, ecologically speaking, but unsustainable, from a political and social point of view, denouncing the discrepancies between what is defended for a now and for one future.
The prize was presented by Luís Encarnação, mayor of Lagoa, who also announced the opening of the 5th edition of the Santos Stockler Prize 2022/23, which once again includes the award of 10 thousand euros in addition to the publication of the winning work.
The jury appointed by the Municipality was constituted by Luís Encarnação, mayor of Lagoa and the jury, Adriana Nogueira, regional director of Culture of the Algarve, David Roque, coordinator of the Creative Writing Club of the Municipal Library of Lagoa, writer and essayist, Maria Helena do Carmo, retired teacher and writer, and João Nuno Aurélio Marcos, jurist and writer.
13 works were submitted to the competition, and according to the pre-established criteria: literary quality, creativity and innovation, coherence and cohesion of the text, linguistic correction, adaptation to the theme and obedience to the characteristics of the literary genre in question, the jury selected the winning work by Fátima Mártires.
«The Santos Stockler Literary Prize was established by the Municipality of Lagoa in 2016 with the aim of promoting, defending and valuing the Portuguese language and the socio-cultural identity and diversity of the municipality, promoting and encouraging literary creation, a taste for writing and reading. , and also to pay homage to the poet, journalist and novelist from Lagos, Santos Stockler», says the municipality.
Photos: Lagoa City Council
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