Mozambican writer Pedro Pereira Lopes is the only Mozambican finalist for the 2026 Oceanos Prize, competing in the poetry category with his book Tratado das Coisas Sensíveis (Treatise on Sensitive Things). The announcement of the shortlist was made on Wednesday evening.
The final selection followed the assessment of 54 semi-finalists, chosen from 3,000 works submitted by authors of 13 nationalities. The list of finalists comprises six poetry works and an equal number of prose works, representing Mozambique, Angola, Brazil and Portugal.
Mozambique had eight works in the semi-final stage, five in the poetry category and three in prose, with Pedro Pereira Lopes’s book being the only one to advance to the decisive stage of the competition.
The nomination consolidates international recognition of the work, which had won the 10th edition of the Imprensa Nacional Vasco Graça Moura Prize in 2024. The book was published in Portugal the following year by Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda. Pedro Pereira Lopes is also known for his editorial work at the helm of the publishing house Gala-Gala Edições.
The author will compete for the prize alongside Adriana Lisboa, Nina Rizzi, Adélia Prado and Edimilson de Almeida Pereira (all from Brazil), and Portugal’s Helder Macedo.
In the prose category, works by authors from Portugal, Brazil and Angola are competing, with Tudo Sobre Deus (Everything About God), by José Eduardo Agualusa, among the highlights.
The winners in each category will be announced on 11 December during a ceremony at Itaú Cultural, in São Paulo, Brazil.
The Oceanos Prize will award 150,000 reais (around 1.5 million meticais) to the winner of each category. Established in 2007, the award is one of the major distinctions celebrating literature written in Portuguese around the world.
Pedro Pereira Lopes was born in 1987 in Zambézia Province. He studied Public Policy in Beijing and is a researcher and lecturer at Joaquim Chissano University in Maputo. He writes poetry, novels, short stories, travel accounts, essays and children’s and young adult literature. He has received several awards, including the Eugénio Lisboa Prize, the 2017 Imprensa Nacional Prize and the 2024 National Children’s and Young Adult Literature Prize. His microfiction book O Homem Líquido (The Liquid Man) was a finalist for the 2022 Oceanos Prize. He founded and has coordinated publications at Gala-Gala Edições since 2020. With Tratado das Coisas Sensíveis, he won the 2024 Imprensa Nacional Vasco Graça Moura Prize.
Source: Notícias
