Mia Couto

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Mia Couto (2006)

Mia Couto ( António Emílio Leite Couto ; born July 5, 1955 in Beira , Mozambique ) is a Mozambican writer and biologist . A proximity to Latin American magical realism is attributed to his literary work .

Life

Mia Couto was born as the second son of Maria de Jesús, who came from Portugal , and the writer Fernando Leite Couto . His older brother Fernando Amado Couto is now a vet, his younger brother Armando Jorge Couto works as a lawyer. All three live in Mozambique while their parents have returned to Portugal. The change its name António Emílio to Mia as an artist name goes to various types of information to either a "corruption of Emilio Mia by his younger brother back," or that he as a child due to its proximity to his cat itself in Mia or miaow ( " Miau “ ) Renamed.

According to her own statements, Mia Couto grew up in two cultures.

“Em casa era Portugal e Europe, na rua era Africa. (Translation: Home was Portugal and Europe, on the street Africa). "

- Mia Couto, June 19, 1996 in the Jornal de Letras, Artes e Ideias

In addition to Portuguese, he also speaks the Bantu language Chissena .

When he began studying in 1971 at the university's medical faculty in what was then Lourenço Marques , Couto also began his journalistic activities. He was involved in the student community in the Liga dos Estudantes Moçambicanos Anti-Imperialistas (Lema) and sympathized with the Marxist resistance movement FRELIMO . In the course of the Carnation Revolution , he broke off his studies and devoted himself entirely to journalism for a year. He initially worked for the Tribuna headed by Rui Knopfli . After riots in the capital, Couto returned to his hometown of Beira. In 1976, at the age of 21, he was appointed director of the state news agency Agência de Informação de Moçambique (AIM). Until 1981 he was also editor-in-chief of the country's largest daily newspaper, Tempo . Subsequently, he headed the weekly Notícias until 1985 .

In 1985 Mia Couto turned away from journalism and began studying biology in Maputo. Today he teaches biology as a professor at the university and runs a company he founded. He sees himself primarily as a biologist and not as a writer. During his field research, he interviews the inhabitants of the hinterland, whose stories and myths serve as the basis for his writing.

In 1991, together with Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa , Couto received the national prize for short stories from the Mozambican writers' association AEMO . In 1995 his novel Terra sonâmbula was recognized as the most widely read book in Brazil by the Associaçâo Paulista de Críticos de Arte (APCA), and was made into a film in 2007 by the Portuguese director Teresa Prata (see Terra Sonâmbula ). On August 27, 1998, Mia Couto was accepted into the Academia Brasileira de Letras as the first Portuguese-speaking writer in Africa . For his novel A Confissão da Leoa , published in 2012, he received the Prémio Camões in 2013 . On November 1, 2013, World Literature Today announced the award of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature to Mia Couto as the 2014 winner and in 2017 Confession of the Lioness was shortlisted for the International DUBLIN Literary Award . In 2015 he founded the Fundação Fernando Leite Couto , which is dedicated to promoting art and culture in Mozambique.

Mia Couto has been married four times and has three children.

plant

Mia Couto's works are strong by Brazilian authors such as João Cabral de Melo Neto , Jorge Amado , Carlos Drummond de Andrade and João Guimarães Rosa , but also by Portuguese writers such as Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen , Eugénio de Andrade , Eugénio de Lisboa and Fernando Pessoa influenced. Characteristic of his stories is the close proximity to Latin American Magical Realism and his numerous word creations. A typical example are the “Estórias Abensonhadas”, a combination of the existing terms “Estórias” (story / narrative) and “abensonhada” (mixture of “blessed” - abençoado and “dreamed” - sonhado).

bibliography

  • Raiz de Orvalho. (Poetry, 1983)
  • Vozes Anoitecidas. (Short Stories, 1986)
  • Cada Homem é uma Raça. (Short Stories, 1990)
  • Cronicando. (political chronicle, 1988)
  • Terra Sonâmbula. (Story, 1992) German: The sleepwalking country. dipa, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7638-0334-3 .
  • Estórias Abensonhadas. (Short Stories, 1994)
  • A Varanda do Frangipani. (Story, 1996) German: Under the frangipani tree. New edition, Unionsverlag, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-293-20404-1 .
  • Contos do nascer da Terra. (Short Stories, 1997)
  • Mar me across. (Story, 1998; contribution to the Mozambican pavilion at EXPO98 in Lisbon)
  • Vinte e Zinco. (Narration 1999)
  • O último voo do Flamingo. (Narration, 2000)
  • O Gato eo Escuro. (Children's book, 2001)
  • Na berma de nenhuma estrada e outros contos. (Short stories, 2001)
  • Um rio chamado tempo, uma casa chamada terra. (Narration, 2002)
  • Contos do nascer da terra. (Short stories, 2002)
  • O país do queixa andar. (political chronicle, 2003)
  • O fio das missangas. (Short stories, 2003)
  • A chuva pasmada. (Short story, 2004)
  • O outro Pé da Sereia. (Novel, 2006)
  • Venenos de Deus, Remédios do Diabo. (Novel, 2008)
  • Jesusalém. (Novel, 2009)
  • A Confissão da Leoa. (Novel, 2012)
    • The Lioness' Confession. Roman, from the Portuguese by Karin von Schweder-Schreiner, Unionsverlag, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-293-00476-4 .
  • Mulheres de Cinza. (Novel, 2015)
    • Imani. Roman, from the Portuguese by Karin von Schweder-Schreiner, Unionsverlag, Zurich 2017, ISBN 978-3-293-00522-8
  • A água ea águia. Editorial Caminho, Alfragide 2018, ISBN 978-972-21-2959-6 (children's book, illustrations by Danuta Wojciechowska).
  • O terrorista elegant e outras histórias. (Co-author José Eduardo Agualusa), Quetzal Editores, ISBN 978-989-722-621-2 (three short stories, 2019).

Secondary literature

  • Patrick Chabal: Vozes moçambicanas. Literatura e nacionalidade. Vega, Lisbon 1994, pp. 274-291.
  • Gerhard Schönberger: Mozambican literature in the Portuguese language. Origin and problems of a national literature. Domus Ed. Europea, Frankfurt a. M. 2002.

Web links

Commons : Mia Couto  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Ebel: «I couldn't even cry» . In: Tages-Anzeiger . July 23, 2019. Accessed July 24, 2019.
  2. ^ Maya Jaggi: Mia Couto: 'I am white and African. I like to unite contradictory worlds' ( English ) In: The Guardian . August 15, 2015. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  3. ↑ Escritor Mia Couto ganha Prémio Camões  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Portuguese, Retrieved May 28, 2013@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.publico.pt  
  4. ↑ Noted Mozambican Author Mia Couto Wins 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. The Neustadt Prize, November 1, 2013. Accessed November 3, 2013.
  5. ↑ Patrick Chabal, Vozes moçambicanas , p. 287.
  6. ^ New novel by Mozambican Mia Couto "Visible and invisible madness" , review by Margit Klingler-Clavijo on Deutschlandfunk on May 4, 2015, accessed May 6, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Couto, Mia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Couto, António Emílio Leite
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mozambican writer
DATE OF BIRTH 5th July 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Beira , Mozambique