This year, the award received entries from 3,142 works, which were evaluated by two specialized panels, one for prose and another for poetry, composed of professionals from Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe.
The jury selected 25 prose books and 25 poetry books, showcasing a geographical diversity with entries from five countries (Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Portugal) as stated in a release by the organizers.
In prose, renowned authors from Portuguese-language literature, such as Mozambican Mia Couto, Angolan José Eduardo Agualusa, Brazilian Chico Buarque, and Portuguese Teresa Veiga, join emerging writers like newcomers Victor Vidal from Brazil and Francisco Mota Saraiva from Portugal.
In the poetry category, authors from different generations were chosen, including Brazilian poet Maria do Carmo Ferreira, who began writing poetry as a child and published her poems in the 1960s in magazines and literary supplements but remained unpublished in book form until 2024, alongside young authors like Portuguese Sofia Lemos Marques, born in the 1990s.
The selected authors and books advance to the next stage of the competition and will be reviewed by two separate panels, one for prose and another for poetry, who will assess them until the end of October to select five finalists in each genre.
The distinguished authors will receive a total monetary prize of 300,000 reais (47,400 euros), divided into 150,000 reais (23,700 euros) for each winner.
The Oceanos Prize is conducted under the Cultural Incentive Law of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture and is sponsored by Banco Itaú and the Directorate-General of Books, Archives and Libraries of Portugal, with support from Itaú Cultural, the Ministry of Culture and Creative Industries of Cape Verde, and the institutional support of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP).
The Oceanos Prize is managed by the Associação Oceanos in Portugal and Oceanos Cultura in Brazil.
