The unpublished novel will be published by Editorial Gradiva, in partnership with Estoril Sol, which has been promoting the award since its inception in 2008.
“Na Tua Mão” is described as “a novel of adventure, learning, and the overcoming of challenges by two Portuguese siblings aged 11 and 17, living in the troubled regions of Venezuela. Pursued by drug cartels due to their journalist mother, who has since disappeared,” wrote the jury, led by former minister and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation administrator, Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins.
“These two young people will attempt to cross the jungle border into Colombia. During their journey, they learn about the world and find strength to overcome hardships. The narrative, alternately told by the siblings, showcases a freshness that captivates, with a linguistic quality and narrative construction revealing potential for significant literary feats,” the document states.
According to Estoril Sol, Hélder Teixeira Aguiar was born in São João da Madeira in 1983. He graduated in Medicine from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 2008 and completed a master’s degree at King’s College, London.
“This duality between medicine and literature manifests in me as an internal rivalry between the childhood ambition to be a doctor while drafting my first poems; or the maternal encouragement towards medicine contrasting with the cultural universe of my father, who laced my dreams with rock, classical music, and books scattered around the house,” the author explained in a statement by Estoril Sol.
Regarding the novel, the author explained that it “emerged from a research project” on the Darién Gap, between Colombia and Panama, traversed annually by “hundreds of thousands of people from around the globe.”
“I relied on articles, official reports, and prestigious reports like Nadja Drost’s Pulitzer Prize-winning piece, as well as social media videos and shared experiences in migration groups. To ensure authenticity, I consulted Venezuelan sensitivity readers and local botanists, read extensively about the Emberá tribe, which has inhabited Darién for centuries, and studied their recently developed dictionary to understand the language,” says the author.
The document also mentions that the writer is influenced by realism, particularly the psychological and social realism of Dostoevsky, and by Camus’s existentialism.
Among Portuguese authors, he cites Eça de Queirós, Agustina Bessa-Luís, Vergílio Ferreira, Gonçalo M. Tavares, Afonso Reis Cabral, José Luís Peixoto, Hugo Gonçalves, and Carla Pais.
The winning author also highlights J.D. Salinger, “whose portrayal of the young mind in ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ was pivotal, and of course, the inimitable José Saramago.”
Besides Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins, representing the National Center for Culture, the jury included José Manuel Mendes from the Portuguese Writers Association, Maria Carlos Gil Loureiro from the Directorate-General for Books, Archives, and Libraries, Manuel Frias Martins from the Portuguese Association of Literary Critics, along with individually invited José Carlos de Vasconcelos and Ana Paula Laborinho, and Dinis de Abreu representing Estoril Sol.
Last year’s winning novel was “O Processo” by Dulce de Souza Gonçalves.
