Mia Couto: poems, works and biography

Mia Couto is a Mozambican writer who was considered the author of one of the best African books of the 20th century.

Known in several countries around the world, his literary work consists of poems, short stories, chronicles and novels. In it, in addition to including his social and political criticism, the author shows how much he values ​​his traditions.

The national and international awards received are recognition of the richness of his literary work.

The writer who gives voice to Africa won the post of corresponding member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, where he occupies chair No. 5, whose patron is Dom Francisco de Sousa.

Poems by Mia Couto

Longing

I miss you
I have to be born.
Nostalgia
to wait for a name
like who comes back
to the house that no one has ever lived.
You don't need life, poet.
So spoke the grandmother.
God lives for us, she sentenced.
And back to prayers.
the house came back
in the womb of silence
and made you want to be born.
I miss you
I have from God."

(Poem from the book Translator of Rains)

Age

Mind the time:
the age i am
it is only measured by infinities.

Because I don't live extensively.

I just went to Life
in flash of incense.

when i lit up
was in the abbreviations of the immense."

(Poem from the book Vagas e Lumes)

For you

it was for you
I defoliated the rain
for you I released the perfume of the earth
I touched nothing
and for you it was everything

For you I created all the words
and all I missed
the minute I cut
the taste of always

I gave voice to you
to my hands
open the segments of time
assaulted the world
and I thought it was all in us
in this sweet mistake
of owning everything
without having anything
simply because it was at night
and we didn't sleep
I came down on your chest
to look for me
and before the darkness
gird us around the waist
we were in the eyes
living on one
loving of one life."

(Poem from the book Root of Dew and other Poems)

What did Mia Couto write?

Below is the list of the author's complete bibliography:

storybooks

• The string of beads, 2003
• On the Edge of No Road, 1999
• Tales from the Birth of the Earth, 1997
• Blessed Stories, 1994
• Each Man is a Race, 1990
• Nightfall Voices, 1987

chronicle books

• What if Obama were African? and Other Interventions, 2009
• Thoughts. Opinion Texts, 2005
• The Country of the Complaint Walking, 2003
• Chronicling, 1991

Children's book

• The Boy in the Shoe, 2013
• The Kiss of the Word, 2006
• The Rainfall, 2004
• The Cat and the Dark, 2008

poetry books

• Translator of Rains, 2011
• Ages, Cities, Deities, 2007
• Root of Dew and other Poems, 1999
• Dew Root, 1983

Affairs

• Jobs and Fires, 2014
• Jerusalem (in Brazil, the title of the book is Before the World is Born), 2009
• Poisons of God, Remedies of the Devil, 2008
• The Other Foot of the Mermaid, 2006
• A River Called Time, A House Called Earth, 2002
• The Last Flight of the Flamingo, 2000
• Mar Wants Me, 2000
• Twenty and Zinc, 1999
• The Frangipani Balcony, 1996
• Somnambual Land, 1992

Meet Mia Couto: biography of the writer

Known as Mia Couto, her full name is Antônio Emílo Leite Couto. Son of Portuguese, he was born in Mozambique on July 5, 1955.

Mia Couto made her debut in lyrics at the age of 14, when she published poems in Jornal da Beira, his hometown.

She entered Medicine, but dropped out of the course to dedicate herself to journalism. He worked as a journalist between 1974 and 1985, when he was a reporter and director of the Mozambican Information Agency (AIM), the weekly magazine Tempo and the newspaper Notícias.

After leaving his career as a journalist, he graduated in Biology, specializing in Ecology. He became a professor at the university from which he graduated. In addition to being a professor, he is a researcher, and in 1922 the preservation of the nature reserve of Ilha de Inhaca was in his charge.

Awards received (most to least recent):

• Neustadt International Literature Award, from the University of Oklahomade, in 2014;
• Camões Award, in 2013;
• Eduardo Lourenço Award, in 2011;
• Passo Fundo Zaffari and Bourbon Prize for Literature, with the book O Outros Pé da Sereia, in 2007;
• Latin Union of Romance Literature Award, in 2007;
• Mário António Prize (Fiction) from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, for the book O Última Voo do Flamingo, in 2001;
• National Fiction Award from the Association of Mozambican Writers (AEMO), for the book Terra Sonâmbula, in 1995;
• Vergílio Ferreira Award, from the University of Évora, in 1990;
• Areosa Pena Annual Journalism Award (Mozambique) for the book Cronicando, in 1989.

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