Shortlist for the Prêmio Portugal Telecom de Literatura em Língua Portuguesa

The shortlist for the Prêmio Portugal Telecom de Literatura em Língua Portuguesa was recently announced and is made up of the following books:

Bom dia camaradas, Ondjaki (Agir)

Cantigas do falso Alfonso el Sábio, Affonso Ávila (Ateliê Editorial)

História natural da ditadura, Teixeira Coelho (Iluminuras)

Jerusalém, Gonçalo M. Tavares (Companhia das Letras)

Macho não ganha flor, Dalton Trevisan (Record)

O outro pé da sereia, Mia Couto (Companhia das Letras)

O paraíso é bem bacana, André Sant´Anna (Companhia das Letras)

O roubo do silêncio, Marcos Siscar (7letras editora)

O segundo tempo, Michel Laub (Companhia das Letras)

Por que sou gorda, mamãe?, Cintia Moscovich (Record)

Aside from the e-mail I got from the Ray-Gude Mertin Agency (which represents six of these titles), I’m having a hard time finding any coverage of this Prize in English. (No surprise.)

The rules of this Prize are a bit complicated as well . . . Seems that this Prize is awarded to the best book written in Portuguese and published in Brazil last year, that was originally published outside of Brazil between Jan 1, 2003 and Dec 31, 2006. The winner receives approx. 56,000 euros.

The link above does have descriptions of all the shortlisted titles, and I highly recommend using the Google translator to check these out. I’m particularly intrigued by this book:

Why I am fat, mother? – Cintia Moscovich

It deals with the auto-image crises of the gordinhos. It hates the food that the fattening, but loves the food that gives pleasure to it. These ambiguities are exceeded gradually, gram the gram, garfada the garfada one, chapter the chapter.