Léo Cote, with the work “Instalação do Corpo”, in the poetry category, and Mélio Tinga, with “Névoa na Sala”, in prose, are the winners of the Mia Couto Literary Prize 2025, the organisers announced this Friday, 5 September, in Beira.
At a ceremony held at Zambeze University, in the capital of Sofala, the two laureates received their cash prizes, 400,000 meticais each, after winning this third edition of the “Mia Couto”. The Prize honours the best literary works published each year by Mozambican authors, and is organised by Cornelder de Moçambique (CdM) in partnership with the Kulemba Association.
In the poetry category, Léo Cote beat off competition from “As Coisas do Morto”, by Francisco Guita Júnior; “O Pouso do Casco”, by Lino Mukurruza; “Tocar o Ser”, by Sánia Iacuti; and “Um Umbigo Arde na Boca”, by M. P. Bonde, who were the other four finalists.
In the prose category, Mélio Tinga came out ahead of the books “A Queda do Macombe Chipapata: Tramas e Revoltas”, by Celestino Joanguete; “As Origens”, by Lavimó da Verónica; “O Código das Serpentes”, by Hélder Muteia; and “Última Memória. Entrevista com Sthoe”, by Lucílio Manjate.
Léo Cote and Mélio Tinga both live in the city of Maputo. Mélio Tinga is 31 and has ten books published in three countries: Mozambique, Brazil and Portugal. Léo Cote is 44 and has six books published, all of them only in Mozambique.
In the presence of the Mozambican writer who gives the Prize its name, Mia Couto, of officials from Sofala province and the city of Beira, and of representatives of the organisers, the chair of the jury, Nataniel Ngomane, said that the choice of the two winners was “unanimous” among the members of the Jury, which also included Teresa Noronha, Vanessa Riambau Pinheiro, Joaquim Arena and Marcelo Panguana.
In this third edition, 36 writers took part, 21 in the poetry category and 15 in prose, with works published by 14 Mozambican publishing houses. Works published between 1 January and 31 December 2024, in the two categories, were eligible this year.
The Prize, launched in June 2023 in Beira in the presence of the Mozambican writer Mia Couto, is annual and was established as part of the 25 years that Cornelder de Moçambique celebrated in October 2023.
The initiative aims to stimulate quality literary production in the country, honouring the best works published each year. Each winner of the Mia Couto Literary Prize is awarded a cash sum of 400,000 meticais.
The Prize has two categories (prose and poetry) and honours one work in each category, published in the previous year. For the prose category, in even-numbered years, the Prize is awarded to the best short story collection, and, in odd-numbered years, to the best novel. Accordingly, this year, 2025, the Prize honoured a novel.
In 2023, in its first edition, in which works published in 2021 and 2022 were exceptionally accepted, the winners were Bento Baloi, with the work “No Verso da Cicatriz”, in the novel category (prose fiction), and Belmiro Mouzinho, with “Pétalas Negras ou a Sombra do Inanimado”, in the poetry category.
In 2024, in the second edition, the winner was Adelino Albano Luís, with the book “Estórias trazidas pela ventania”. The members of the Jury in that edition, namely Lourenço do Rosário (chair), Teresa Manjate, Marcelo Panguana, Ondjaki and Tânia Macedo, decided, “unanimously”, not to award a prize to any of the works entered in the poetry category, “having found some weaknesses in their poetic construction, a decision provided for in Article 23 of the Prize Regulations”, as Marcelo Panguana explained at the time.
