Luanda - Angolan writer Artur Pestana Pepetela has recently won the DstvAngola/Camões literary award, with his latest novel "Sua Excelência, de Corpo Presente".
The jury presided over by Irene Guerra Marques distinguished Pepetela's text "not only for its topicality", but also for the way in which "it keeps young and lucid the irony, socio-cultural criticism and an intense creativity, which accompanies the advances and retreats of Angolan and even African reality, with regard to the reality we live south of the Sahara".
This is the second distinction of the novel, which received in February the Correntes d'Escritas Literary Prize.
The DstvAngola/Camões literary prize is an initiative of the Dstv Group in partnership with Camões - Institute for Cooperation and Language, which aims to distinguish, annually and alternately, books published in poetry and prose by artists born in Angola.
The 15,000 euros Award will be awarded in Luanda, on a date yet to be confirmed.
The novel is a scathing criticism of the abuse of power and totalitarian systems of government disguised as democracies, written with an intelligent sense of humour, and in which any resemblance to reality is pure coincidence.