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Portuguese writer Lídia Jorge has been awarded the 2026 Austrian State Prize for European Literature. The announcement was made on Tuesday in a statement published on the official website of the country’s Ministry of Culture (source in Portuguese).
The prize, first awarded in 1965, goes to the complete literary work of a European author whose writing has achieved significant international recognition and is available in German, through translations, the same press release explains.
In its justification for the choice, the jury argues that “Lídia Jorge has for many years been one of the most important voices in Portuguese literature”, with a body of work in which “critique of European colonialism” is presented as a “central theme”, alongside “social inequality and poverty, discrimination against women, racism and the 1974 Carnation Revolution”, the statement reads.
The panellists – Cristina Beretta, Thomas Keul, Thomas Macho, Marlene Streeruwitz and Andrea Zederbauer – also recall that in “almost fifty years of her career as a writer” the author “has not only written thirteen novels, but also numerous children’s books, short stories, plays, poems and essays”. Over the decades, these works have been “translated into Spanish, French, English and German”.
Among Lídia Jorge’s works available in German, highlights include O Dia dos Prodígios (1979), A Costa dos Murmúrios (1988) and Misericórdia (2022), among others.
“Lídia Jorge is one of the most distinguished writers in contemporary European literature; her work is as multi-faceted and diverse as her themes are meaningful and omnipresent,” says Austria’s vice-chancellor and minister for Arts and Culture, Andreas Babler, quoted in the same statement.
The minister also points out that over “many decades” the Portuguese author “has used her highly poetic writing to defend human equality and the value of life”, stressing that he has “the deepest admiration for the author”, to whom he also sends a message of congratulations.
The award ceremony, worth 25,000 euros, is scheduled for 27 July and will be conducted by the Austrian vice-chancellor, as part of the Salzburg Festival programme.
Born in 1946 in Boliqueime, in the Algarve municipality of Loulé, Lídia Jorge studied French literature in Lisbon and lived for several years in Angola and Mozambique during the Colonial War. In addition to literature, she devoted part of her life to teaching, particularly in secondary and higher education.
Throughout her career, she has received a number of awards, including the Grande Prémio de Romance e Novela of the Portuguese Writers’ Association in 2003, for O Vento Assobiando nas Gruas (2002), as well as the 2020 FIL Prize for Literature in Romance Languages and the Pessoa Prize 2025.
She was also decorated, by the former President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, with the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint James of the Sword, in February this year. (source in Portuguese)