Huambo – Three Angolans are among the 50 most outstanding cultural figures on the African continent, according to a publication in the French magazine “Le Point”, ANGOP learned this Tuesday.
These are Nituecheni Africano (writer), Tchongolola Tchongonga – Ekuikui VI (King of Bailundo) and Jeremias Piedade Chissanga (director of the Culture, Tourism, Youth and Sports office in the province of Huambo).
Le Point, one of the three main news magazines in France, published weekly in Paris, has highlighted, in its pages, figures from various cultural fringes around the world, having, at the beginning of this year, 2024, placed three Angolans on the list of 50 figures most referenced in culture on the continent “cradle of humanity”.
The 33-year-old writer Nituecheni Africano is considered a major name in African literature, after winning the “Literary Reference” award on December 5, 2023, in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).
Previously, in 2022, the writer had won the Best Novel category of the IV edition of the Great Latin American Literary Competition, with the work entitled “O imigrante da Web e suas tolice - The Web Immigrant and His Follies”, one of the most sought African books by Europeans and Latin Americans.
The event, based on voting, was attended by 192 writers from various countries, particularly Latin America, who competed in several categories, with Nituecheni Africano being the only representative from the African continent.
At the beginning of 2023, he was appointed ambassador of literature in five African countries (Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Uganda) by the Brazilian magazine Word-Book Revier.
The sovereign Tchongolola Tchongonga - Ekuikui VI is highlighted as a king of Angola who, recently, was on a working visit to Brazil, specifically in the city of São Paulo, where he had contact with several citizens with African roots who, in the past, were sold as slaves.
“The king of the Bailundo tribe did what many African kings did not do during his reign, investing piously in the valorization and retrieval of African culture. To this day, he requests the Portuguese state to return the pieces removed and belonging to his kingdom”, writes the magazine.
Distinguished, recently, with the Cultural Ambassador award during the Literary Reference award gala in Brazil, the French magazine considers Jeremias Piedade Chissanga a political leader and excellent lover of African culture, who continues to encourage youth to value their own culture.
It should be noted that the three highlighted by the French magazine Le Point reside in the province of Huambo, a region located in the Central Highlands of Angola, with countless mystical and cultural values.
ALH/CF/jmc
