“Honoring Ana Paula Tavares is a celebration of the strength and beauty of Lusophone literature,” emphasized Margareth Menezes, in a statement released by the National Library Foundation of Brazil.
“Her poetry, woven with memory, resistance, and affection, reveals the power of African and female voices that enrich cultural heritages. We recognize her work as deep ties that unite Brazil, Angola, and all Lusophone countries through art, words, and shared history,” she continued.
In the same statement, the president of the National Library Foundation, Marco Lucchesi, praised the “extraordinary” choice.
“Poet, essayist, researcher, she embodies all virtues that lead to an ethical commitment. Her perspective is marked by urgency in addressing the issues of Africa, Brazil, and Portugal, attentive to the great contemporary challenges,” he stated.
According to Lucchesi, Ana Paula offers readers “a profound sense of the 21st century: the past and future, in multiple genres, from a human and humanitarian, poetic and civil key.”
Angolan poet and historian Ana Paula Tavares, author of an extensive literary work in prose and poetry and scientific texts, has been awarded the Camões Prize 2025, announced today by the General Directorate of Books, Archives, and Libraries (DGLAB).
Born in 1952 in Angola, in the city of Lubango, Ana Paula Tavares holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology of History from the New University of Lisbon.
She studied History at the Faculty of Letters of Lubango and completed her education in Lisbon, with a master’s in Brazilian Literature and African Literatures in Portuguese from the University of Lisbon and a Ph.D. in Anthropology of History from the New University of Lisbon, as recalled in the biography provided by the General Directorate of Books, Archives, and Libraries (DGLAB) in the prize announcement statement.
The poet and historian currently resides in Lisbon and is a lecturer at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon, also collaborating with several institutions as a guest researcher, such as the CLEPUL (Center for Lusophone and European Literatures and Cultures) of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon, the AHNA (National Historical Archive of Angola).
A significant part of Ana Paula Tavares’s work, author of an extensive literary oeuvre in prose and poetry and scientific texts, is published in anthologies edited in various countries.
Throughout her career, she has worked in fields such as Museology, Heritage, Cultural Animation, Archaeology, and Ethnology, collaborating with multiple organizations, from the Angolan Environment Association to the Angolan Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the Angolan Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), and the Angolan Commission for UNESCO.
Her bibliography, which began to take shape in the post-independence of Angola, is extensive and multifaceted, with Caminho publishing her collected poetry in 2023, to which an original book titled ‘Água Selvagem’ was added.
The Camões Prize for literature in the Portuguese language, established by the Governments of Portugal and Brazil, was first awarded in 1989 to Portuguese writer Miguel Torga.
According to the founding protocol text, signed in Brasília on June 22, 1988, and published in November of the same year, the prize annually recognizes “a Portuguese-language author whose work, due to its intrinsic value, has contributed to the enrichment of the literary and cultural heritage of the shared language.”
Financed equally by the Governments of Portugal and Brazil, the Camões Prize is valued at one hundred thousand euros.
