Brazil’s Dalton Trevisan wins top Portuguese literary prize

Brazilian writer Dalton Trevisan, famed for his raw short stories, has won the Camoes prize, the Portuguese-speaking world’s top literary honour, officials announced Monday.

Born in 1925 in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba, the reclusive writer is known for collections of grotesque stories often filled with dark humour, particularly “The Vampire of Curituba”, published in 1965.

The decision was “a radical choice for literature as the art of speech,” said the head of the jury that awarded the prize, Brazilian writer Silviano Santiago.

He praised Trevisan’s “incessant experiments with the Portuguese language” and his “devotion to literary knowledge without making concessions to the distractions of personal and social life.”

The 100,000-euro ($125,000) prize was created in 1989 by Portugal and Brazil to recognise the best authors in the Portuguese language.

Last year’s winner was Portuguese poet Manuel Antonio Pina. Other past winners include Portuguese Nobel laureate Jose Saramago in 1995, Brazil’s Jorge Amado in 1994 and Angola’s Pepetela in 1997.

The prize is named for Portugal’s greatest poet, 16th-century writer Luiz Vaz de Camoes.