The novel «Misericórdia», by Lídia Jorge, won the Prize for Best Lusophone Book published in France, awarded by the editorial staff of the literary magazine Defector, announced the publisher Dom Quixote, which publishes the work of the Algarve author.
“Edited by Métailié, Lídia Jorge's publisher in that country, and translated by Elisabeth Monteiro Rodrigues, 'Misericórdia' has been very well received by critics, who have already included it among the main highlights of the return French," he added.
Published in Portugal in October 2022, the novel «Misericórdia» was written by Lídia Jorge at the request of her mother, who, admitted to a nursing home in the Algarve, asked her several times to write a book with that title.
The story takes place between April 2019 and April 2020, the date of the death of the author's mother, who was one of the first victims of covid-19 in the south of the country.
“My mother asked me several times to write a book called 'mercy', because she thought there was a misunderstanding in the treatment of people, she thought that people tried to be loved, but didn't understand them. She asked me to write a book called 'mercy', so that people would have compassion and treat them as if they were people in the fullness of life”, revealed the author in an interview with Lusa, at the time of the novel's publication.
According to the writer, this is not a “morbid” book and its writing did not evoke feelings of sadness or pain in her. Rather, it is a “book about the splendor of life that happens when people are about to leave”, about the “magnificent acts of resistance that people have at the end of life”.
“Misericórdia” won, last July, the 2022 Novel and Novel Grand Prize from the Portuguese Writers Association (ON FOOT).
In 1988, The Coast of Whispers opened its doors to international recognition, and was later adapted to film by Margarida Cardoso. Among many others, titles such as The Valley of Passion, The Wind Whistling in the Cranes (awarded Grand Prize for Romance and Novels – 2002), We will fight the Shadow, The Memorables – a work that has been considered a powerful metaphor for Portuguese drift in recent decades –, or The Book of Truces, his poetry debut.
His books have been awarded the main national prizes, some of them for the body of work, such as the Latinity Prize, the Great Prize of the Portuguese Society of Authors – Millennium BCP or the Vergílio Ferreira Prize.
Abroad, among others, Lídia Jorge won the first edition of the prestigious ALBATROS award from the Günter Grass Foundation in 2006 and, in 2015, the Luso-Spanish Culture Grand Prix.
your novel Estuary (2018) received the XXIV Great Prize for Literature and was a finalist for the 2019 Médicis Prize; It is In all senses (2020) won the APE/Câmara Municipal de Loulé Chronicle and Dispersed Literary Prize.
In June 2023, he received the prize Vida Literária APE/Câmara Municipal de Braga.
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