João Barreto Guimarães wins literary prize

The Portuguese poet João Luís Barreto Guimarães won the Francisco de Sá de Miranda Literary Prize with the work “Open Every Day”, announced this Monday the municipality of Amares, district of Braga.

“ “Open Every Day” , by João Barreto Guimarães (Quetzal, 2023), is the winning work of the 4th edition of the Francisco de Sá de Miranda Literary Prize, promoted by the Municipal Council of Amares, through the Center for Mirandinos Studies (CEM)”, says the municipality, in a statement.

The Francisco de Sá de Miranda Literary Prize has a monetary value of 7,500 euros and is promoted biennially by the municipality of Amares, through the CEM, “with the aim of paying homage to and promoting the poet and humanist Francisco de Sá de Miranda, as well as encouraging literary creation in the field of poetry”.

Quoted in the statement, the director of CEM says that the work (out of a total of around 200 in the competition) unanimously deserved the jury's distinction.

“For its ability to, using very accessible language, emphasize and value everyday objects that at first glance go unnoticed, and extract new meanings and significance from these everyday objects”, emphasizes Sérgio Guimarães.

For the director of CEM, the work reveals “in its compositional architecture, a notable aesthetic maturity”, through which João Luís Barreto Guimarães, “in a language apparently of current use and narrative inclination, but shaped by a fine irony and an unusual metric, gives strength and originality to an imaginary rich in objects and tangible presences of high suggestivity”.

Also mentioned in the statement, the councilor for Culture of the municipality of Amares congratulates the doctor and translator on receiving the award, also recognizing the “valuable” work that has been developed by the Centro de Estudos Mirandinos around the figure of Sá de Miranda.

“And, in this particular case, the merit of the Francisco de Sá de Miranda Literary Prize, arguing that the future should continue to involve investing” in this award, “as well as in all initiatives that promote and pay homage to this great figure of poetry”, argues Cidália Abreu.

“Aberto Todos os Dias” was awarded last year with the António Ramos Rosa Grand Poetry Prize from the Portuguese Writers Association (APE).

Pessoa Prize 2022, João Luís Barreto Guimarães was born in Porto, on June 3, 1967. He published his first book, “Há Violinos na Tribo”, in an author's edition, in 1989.

With more than a dozen books published, the first seven gave rise to his first volume of “Poesia Reunida”, published by Quetzal in 2011.

In 2016, he released “Mediterrâneo”, by this publisher, which won the António Ramos Rosa National Poetry Prize, in Faro, and was published in Spain, Italy, France, Poland, Egypt, Greece, Serbia, the United States and Finland. In these two countries, he received, respectively, the Willow Run Poetry Book Award 2020 and the Tanssiva Karhu Poetry Prize, for best foreign book of 2024.

With “Movimento”, from 2020, he won the dst Grand Prize for Literature.

João Luís Barreto Guimarães is also a doctor and professor of Introduction to Poetry for medical students at the Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto.