Lit in Translation

All prizes Portugal

Grande Prémio de Romance e Novela APE/DGLAB

Portugal · Since 1982 · For books in Portuguese

Awarded each year since 1982 by the Portuguese Writers' Association (APE) to a novel or novella in Portuguese by a Portuguese author, first published the year before; the APE names each prize after that year of publication. From 2012 to 2022 the jury also announced a shortlist of five finalists.

The first award went to José Cardoso Pires for Balada da Praia dos Cães, published in 1982. The prize is worth 15,000 euros. Besides the Directorate-General for Books, Archives and Libraries (DGLAB), named in its title, it is supported by the municipality of Grândola, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Instituto Camões. Publishers submit books, 86 of which were admitted for the 2022 prize, and in recent years a six-member jury has chosen the winner, announced during the following year. Past winners include José Saramago, Vergílio Ferreira, Maria Velho da Costa, Gonçalo M. Tavares and Valter Hugo Mãe. Mário Cláudio has won three times, in 1984, 2014 and 2020. Agustina Bessa-Luís, António Lobo Antunes, Lídia Jorge, Teolinda Gersão and Maria Gabriela Llansol are among those who have won twice.

Winners in English
3 of 27
Years on this site
2000–2026

Winners and shortlist

Stage

Showing 4 of 44 books. 40 aren’t in English yet: show all.

2022 1 of 4 books

  • In English

    APE 2022 · Shortlist

    Three Stories of Forgetting

    Maremoto

    Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida · 39 when first published

    Novel · 304 pages · War, Family

    AI-generated summary:In Lisbon, Boa Morte da Silva, an old soldier who now parks cars, and a girl from Rua do Loreto become friends like a chance grandfather and granddaughter, while he writes letters to a daughter who is almost a stranger.

2020 1 of 4 books

  • In English

    APE 2020 · Shortlist

    Three Stories of Forgetting

    A Visão das Plantas

    Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida · 37 when first published

    Novel · 304 pages · Historical

    AI-generated summary:Captain Celestino, a former pirate who once smothered a revolt of the Africans he was shipping to Brazil, ends his days almost a saint, quietly tending a garden, in a story drawn from a passage in Raul Brandão.

2018 1 of 4 books

  • In English

    APE 2018 · Shortlist

    The Society of Reluctant Dreamers

    A Sociedade dos Sonhadores Involuntários

    José Eduardo Agualusa · 57 when first published

    Novel · 288 pages · Politics, Satire

    AI-generated summary:Daniel Benchimol, an Angolan journalist, keeps dreaming of strangers, and dreams draw him together with a Mozambican artist, a Brazilian scientist and a hotelier with a violent past, in a country whose dictatorship is crumbling.

2012 1 of 4 books

  • In English

    APE 2012 · Shortlist

    City of Ulysses

    A Cidade de Ulisses

    Teolinda Gersão · 71 when first published

    Novel · 197 pages · Love

    AI-generated summary:Two people meet and fall in love in Lisbon, and their affair turns into a love story with the city itself, ranging over myth and history, literature and painting, past and present.