‘Silêncio Branco’ is distinguished by “its rare poetic ambition, combining a language of mystical and imagistic breath with universal themes like death, love, the body, and collective memory,” remarked the award’s jury.
“It is a work that transcends the confessional register, belonging to the tradition of great visionary chants, where each poem is a fragment of a reinvented world. The jury recognizes in this voice a literary force capable of expanding the horizons of contemporary poetry in the Portuguese language,” the jury added in their statement about the decision to award the prize to “Silencio Branco” by writer Teresa Machado.
The Ulysses Prize was established in 2019 by the Ulysses Magazine, founded by two Irish brothers residing in Portugal.
In 2020, following the magazine’s closure, the prize became integrated into the publisher The Poets and Dragons Society, which now administers it.
Awarded annually, it aims to stimulate and encourage poetic production and discover new talents in poetry written in the Portuguese language.
The competing works are selected by a committee that considers their “best literary merit,” in a report submitted to the jury, composed of up to three experts in literature, according to the rules.
The winner of this seventh edition of the Ulysses Prize was announced on Bloomsday, on June 16, at the 95th edition of the Lisbon Book Fair, in reference to James Joyce’s work ‘Ulysses,’ after which the prize is named, and to the day in the life of its protagonist, Leopold Bloom, which the work narrates.
In 2024, the Ulysses Prize was awarded to the work ‘Tarântula’ by João Rasteiro.
