The Camões Institute, in partnership with the Portuguese business group dst, launched this Wednesday, in Lisbon, an annual literary prize worth 15 thousand euros that aims to distinguish poetry and prose works by Angolan writers.
The dstangola/Camões Literature Prize, presented publicly in the auditorium of Camões — Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua, aims to distinguish, annually and alternately, works in poetry and prose by artists born in Angola, resident or not, with published works in the country or abroad, in the previous two years, as long as it was in Portuguese, as explained to journalists by the president of the Domingos da Silva Teixeira (dst) group, José Gonçalves Teixeira.
With a value of 15 thousand euros, the prize will be judged by professor Irene Guerra Marques, writer José Eduardo Agualusa and journalist and director of Novo Jornal de Angola, Carlos Ferreira. The first edition, whose award will be presented on June 10th, in Luanda, will distinguish works in poetry while in the following edition, works in prose will be distinguished.
In the public presentation session, attended by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Portugal, Teresa Ribeiro, and the president of the Camões institute, Luís Faro Ramos, a support protocol for the Camões library was also signed with that business group. Portuguese Cultural Center in Luanda.
“We bought a few hundred books [para a biblioteca]worth more than 12,500 euros and then, for three years, there will be a reinforcement of six thousand euros per year also in books”, said José Gonçalves Teixeira.
With this agreement, the dst group becomes the 13th company to join the Portuguese Language Promoter Company (EPLP) initiative, launched by the Camões Institute in 2017, which aims to associate companies’ internationalization efforts with the promotion of language and culture Portuguese.
The businessman, who among other investments in Angola was responsible for building the Candando supermarket chain, owned by Isabel dos Santos, highlighted the importance of support being provided through the delivery of books.
“Companies live off a brand and the anchor point of our brand is culture. The determination in the book is because we believe that whoever reads it becomes much more powerful”, pointed out the president of dst, remembering the group’s long journey in supporting literature, theater, music and dance in Portugal.
The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Teresa Ribeiro, highlighted, for her part, the signal given by companies by joining the Camões initiative. “Much more important than financial support is the sign that civil society and companies are associated with the implementation of a public policy. Companies recognize that the expansion of the Portuguese language and culture are important from a political point of view, but they are equally essential for the internationalization of companies and their strong presence in both national and foreign markets,” she said.
Portuguese language? What is that?
The president of the Camões institute defined in November 2018 as an “ambitious” but “perfectly achievable” goal to reach the 40 countries where Portuguese is included in school curricula, as the Government intends, and pointed to the Ibero-American states as a bet.
“At the moment we are in more than 20 countries with Portuguese integrated into the curricula of public schools at secondary level, so we will reach 30 without much effort, in four or five years. 30”, said ambassador Luís Faro Ramos at the time, in an interview with Lusa, who at the time served one year as president of Camões – Institute of Cooperation and Language.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, Augusto Santos Silva, stated, in September last year, that the Government wanted “in the short term” to double the number of countries with Portuguese as an international language of choice in primary and secondary education, moving to 40.
“At the moment, the number of countries in which Portuguese is used as a foreign language in primary or secondary education is 20 and our objective is to double that number in the short term”, said Augusto Santos Silva, in the public presentation of the Portuguese Education Network. Portuguese Abroad (EPE), which took place at Camões headquarters, in Lisbon.
For Luís Faro Ramos, the goal established by the executive is “ambitious” but “perfectly achievable” and highlighted that “it is clear that this implies very permanent work on the part of the structures that Camões has in the countries”. However, it does not imply additional financial effort on Portugal’s part, he assured.
“When we are talking about doubling the number of countries where Portuguese is taught at a curricular level, in public education, we are often talking about spending zero money, and that is fantastic”, he stated, adding that “the initiative requires a very direct involvement of local authorities, and when this happens they are interested in financing language teaching”.
Once the receiving State assumes the importance of integrating Portuguese into the curricula of its public schools, this becomes a project for the country in question, explained Faro Ramos.
The president of Camões, however, hopes that the goal established by the Portuguese executive will be seen “as important by countries, particularly those in the Ibero-American space”.
“At the moment we only have five countries on the South American continent where Portuguese is part of the school curriculum and we want to have more. There is an effort to make, but this, I repeat, does not imply additional financial effort. There is a huge effort to be made to persuade our embassies, our education networks, our coordinations,” with country entities, he considered.
When it comes to teaching the Portuguese diaspora, Camões has very direct responsibilities, which involve, in particular, paying salaries to teachers, he explained.
“We often say that the most relevant soft power that Portugal has abroad is the power of the language. Therefore, the goal of doubling [o número de países com português como língua estrangeira no currículo do básico e secundário] It is a path that will be achieved, because all the indicators we have make us optimistic”, he states.
Regarding the objective of reaching more countries in South America, he says, it is because there is consensus at the level of the States of “Ibero-America and Portugal and Spain, in the case of the European continent, that all countries of the Ibero-American Conference must have the other language too.”
Thus, Portugal and Brazil must have Spanish and those who speak Spanish, which is everyone else, around 20, must have Portuguese [no ensino público].
“The theoretical path has been outlined, and now what we have to do is remind these countries of the importance of also using the Portuguese language in their public education curriculum”, said the diplomat.
Faro Ramos mentioned that from the trips he has made to several of those countries he has detected their interest in teaching the Portuguese language, “sometimes because of Portugal, other times because of Brazil”, noting: “But this is not a bad thing. ”.
In fact, “within the scope of the external promotion of the Portuguese language, Portugal must always continue to count on the collaboration of Brazil”, he argued.
The example of an important partnership between Brazil and Portugal in terms of promoting the language is the one that was created and is starting to teach Portuguese at the United Nations school in New York, he said.
And there may be others: “We are looking at the possibility of entering other countries together with Brazil”, he admitted.
“I don’t see Brazil as a competitor, I see it as a partner, especially because our network is extensive but does not reach the entire world and there are synergies to be explored between us and Brazil in countries where there is interest in the Portuguese language”, he commented. .
Sheet 8 with Lusa