Lydia Jorge: “It’s a very special award for a huge symbolism”

“IT IS the prize that looks at the portuguese literature and the portuguese letters, as a symbol of what is our soul spilled around the world, as Camões says in Song IX, by the world and by life, by the world in pieces divided ", said the author of "Misericórdia" in statements to the agency Lusa.

Refusing any impact on the writing of the rewards she has earned, the writer said: “This symbolism is so strong, so strong, that in fact I, at this moment, feel moved and grateful.”.

“It doesn’t change anything. I mean, one thing is the awards that say that means your job is worth it. And that's a great happiness and it helps a lot and the person gets confident, of course, but the essential is something else, I mean, writing is an inner jubilation, isn't it? It is an interior work, solitary in the case of literature, solitary and, at the same time, so strong, so great, because it is a struggle with the language, with the construction of a history, with a creation that is an imitation of a superior creation, this is not altered by anything that has to do with the awards ", declared.

The author of “A Costa Dos Murmurios” participated last week at the Babell Literary Festival, in Porto, where she stated that she would return to her speech on June 10th last year, in which she said that in Portugal “no one has pure blood”, “it would underline more” and would be “more explicit”.

“ I would stress more, it would be more explicit [in the speech I made at the June 10 celebrations on Camões and the present day], because, even, I learned from what happened on June 10 [of 2025, in Lagos, in the Algarve]. It was a day of revelation for myself. I was surprised, because I am sure that 20 years before that text would not bother anyone ", said the writer who received last year the Person Award.

The author’s publisher, in a statement, congratulates her on the Camões Award and states that this distinction “comes to confirm and reinforce the status of Lídia Jorge, who was already hers, of the most important and award-winning Portuguese writer of today”.

The author recently published “O Céu Cairá sobre Nos”, a book that brings together the chronicles that she regularly publishes in the Spanish newspaper El País.

Lídia Jorge debuted in the literature with the publication of "The Day of the Prodigies" (1980), having since published works in the areas of romance, tale, essay, theater, chronicle and poetry.

His texts have been adapted to theatre, television, cinema and recently the novel “The Memorables” (2014) has been adapted to opera.