PRÉMIO ALMA – Pressupostos
1. O ALMA – Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award foi fundado em 2002 pelo
governo da Suécia, tendo como base a Convenção sobre os Direitos da
Criança, adotada pela Assembleia Geral nas Nações Unidas em 20 de
Novembro de 1989.
2. O Prémio é administrado pelo Swedish Arts Council e é atribuído por um
júri, após análise de candidaturas provenientes de cerca de 60 países.
3. As entidades que nomeiam são reconhecidas pelo Swedish Arts Council
pela competência e conhecimento nas áreas da literatura infantil e da
promoção da leitura. Não podem candidatar-se a si próprias, nem podem
nomear projetos de que sejam coorganizadores. Os anteriores laureados
e o júri podem também apresentar candidaturas.
4. As candidaturas são submetidas, impreterivelmente, até 15 de maio de
cada ano, através de formulário próprio, acompanhadas de todos os
materiais em vários suportes julgados fundamentais para uma boa
avaliação (livros, fotografias, vídeos, CDs áudio, etc.). Cada candidatura
é válida apenas para o ano em questão, podendo as entidades que
nomeiam voltar a apresentá-la no ano seguinte.
5. O Prémio ALMA não é um prémio literário, mas destina-se a valorizar o
conjunto da obra de uma personalidade viva, ou ainda uma entidade
coletiva ou instituição em atividade, que esteja incluída numa das quatro
categorias elegíveis (escritores, ilustradores, contadores de histórias,
promotores da leitura).
6. Os candidatos devem demonstrar na sua obra ou projeto os princípios
fundamentais que regeram Astrid Lindgren: transmitir a crianças e jovens
o sentido da paz, da justiça e da liberdade. Devem ainda mostrar que
prosseguem os valores reconhecidos na escritora sueca: as causas
humanitárias, a defesa dos direitos das crianças e uma relação salutar
com temas delicados, como a doença ou a morte. Ao falar da relação das
crianças com esses temas, visíveis em personagens como Pipi das Meias
Altas, Astrid Lindgren escreveu: «I don’t think one should keep such
things from children – things that they now and then have to face in real
life anyway. Besides, kids love being moved to tears by what they read.
They soon get over it. Furthermore, I’m of the opinion that children
somehow, themselves, censor the books they read. They see the various
scenes with their inner eyes in just the way they’re able to deal with
them. Tragic things never become too tragic, and horrific things never
too horrific.»
7. Como síntese dos pressupostos do Prémio ALMA, encontra-se então o
respeito pelas crianças e o apelo à não-violência, bem como a rejeição
da intolerância e da opressão.
http://www.alma.se/en/
Foram candidatos pela DGLAB:
(excertos dos dossiês de candidatura)
2015 – MARIA TERESA MAIA GONZÁLEZ (autora)
The 2015 nominee, Maria Teresa Maia Gonzalez, has this rare quality as a writer
and as a human being that allows simple answers to difficult questions, that
makes out of truth and understanding the wonder of fiction for young adults.
What she does brilliantly is to release the weight when presenting the hardest
and most sensitive issues to the younger ones. In her books one does not feel
afraid nor ashamed to speak about death, major handicaps, addictions, to
present their frailties and fears, to share it with others. This makes the unique
strength of her stories, a particular touch of universal empathy and acceptance
that rouses from a strong belief in manhood. No one is alone, everyone is special
and everyone is sharing. It is all about being part of the wonder of life in its
numerous, sometimes treacherous, always amazing outcomes and making it
simple, uncomplicated, possible, and even against all odds, luminous.
Her books have been already translated into eight languages. A Lua de Joana is
a best-seller in different countries: in Portugal the book has already sold more
than 350.000 copies.
2014 – MARGARIDA BOTELHO (Projeto Encontros) (promoção da leitura)
Due to the unique character in the literary field in terms of her processes,
methods and resources, ENCONTROS [ENCOUNTERS] (Moçambique, Goa,
Amazónia, Timor) is known for the universal and deeply humanistic nature of
the approach, the respect and ennoblement of the communities with whom she
works, for embracing sharing and exchange. For extending the knowledge and
the information about each of the socio-geographic groups in relation to
individuals and to other cultures; for revealing similarities and affinities that
extend beyond mere physical distance; and for all the books as final testaments
of this journey.
The strength of the project is that it already existed before the words became
stories, before the stories became books, and both of these came about because
of the encounters. Margarida Botelho’s process is deeply essential, honest and
creative. To be born and become a being (a person, book, captured memory,
image, line, colour, texture, wrinkle, skin, paper) in the face of meeting the
“other” and in the face of the wonderment that comes from being able to see
the "other" and to see oneself through the simultaneous forces of difference
and recognition – the difference of form, the recognition of the same universal
content: hunger, pain, joy. Margarida Botelho hands the published books back
to the children with whom she has worked, as a mirror, and it affirms for them
their own existence both in the world, and in the eyes of the world.
2013 – ANTÓNIO MOTA (autor)
António Mota is one of the most prolific Portuguese writers of children's and young
people's literature. His work has the singular quality of being both atemporal and
universal at the same time. Until now, his work has not been widely translated,
and this is perhaps because of his solid and enduring, yet subtle and sensitive
nature, just like his messages that one wants immortalized through generations,
for every child growing-up everywhere, irrespective of time or context, and it is
this quality that is so universal yet so rare. It is for this reason that we feel António
Mota's writing encapsulates the spirit of ALMA.
He is the author of dozens of titles, which have been published regularly since the
release of his first book A Aldeia das Flores in 1979. In 1983 his book O rapaz de
Louredo received an award from the Portuguese Writers' Association; in 1990, he
won the Gulbenkian Children's Literature Award for Pedro Alecrim, and in 1996 he
was awarded the António Botto Prize. In 2011, Pinguim was one of the three works
nominated for the Best children's book of 2010 at the SPA/RTP Awards .
2012 - ANTÓNIO TORRADO (autor)
António Torrado is the author of more than 140 books for children and young
people. He also writes poetry, plays, and screenplays. His literary works for
children have been highly acclaimed in Portugal and in Brazil: he received the
São Paulo Association of Art Critics Award in 1994 and the Gulbenkian Grand
Award for Children and Young People’s Literature in 1988.
António Torrado is currently a key figure on the Portuguese literary scene, not
only for the reading public but also for literary critics who specialize in books
for children and young people.
As a firm supporter of the “pedagogy of the imaginary”, and a writer possessed
with a keen insight into the meandering ways of children’s minds, António
Torrado knows how to balance humour, tenderness, acute intelligence and
subtle irony in all of his books for children. A true architect of the word, he
possesses a remarkable discursive fluency which allows him to keep the sound
of his voice echoing far beyond the last whisper of the text, thereby treading
the same path as Astrid Lindgren. His books are translated into seven languages.
2011 - PLANETA TANGERINA (promoção da leitura)
Planeta Tangerina (PT), which was envisaged as a platform to communicate
with children in the widest meaning of the word, uses mainly the illustrated
album as a basis for its work – with great editorial success both in Portugal and
abroad – and the pre-text to combine it with other activities such as music and
drama. PT has created a system based on simplicity and happiness, energized
by a universal language which appeals to fundamental values of solidarity and
tolerance.
This singular practice, which we consider essential and which contributes in a
major way to the visual heritage (and the human capital) of all who are
privileged to benefit from it, is the starting point for this nomination.
2010 – BIBLIOMÓVEL DE PROENÇA A NOVA (promoção da leitura)
“To embrace the world without leaving anyone out.”
A highly skilled and sensitive young librarian, a little mobile library for steep
and inaccessible roads, a stock of 1,500 items, two computers and internet
access – this is the investment needed to kick-start a process of integration and
revitalization in one of the poorest and most deprived regions of Portugal, a
rural area in the Portuguese interior where people practice subsistence
farming, small-scale service and cottage industries among the forests and
sparse vegetation. There are dozens of isolated hamlets and villages, each with
only tens or a few hundreds of inhabitants, many of whom are illiterate to some
degree and are not readers. Many of them are children that don’t have a single
book. Books, magazines, CDs and internet access have now become part of their
social lives and they would not want to do without the travelling librarian’s
visits.
2009 - PALAVRAS ANDARILHAS (storytelling)
Palavras Andarilhas [Wandering Words] is a project that revolves essentially
around a four-day offering of readings which cover a broad cultural spectrum,
including dialogues on literature for children, meetings, displays of
illustrations, and even a nonstop ten-hour marathon of public reading. But
“Wandering Words” is also intended to be a deliverer of stories: a project about
story-telling, managed and shared by participating organizations. The idea is to
provide story-telling activities for children in all of the registered organizations,
thus promoting the practice of story-telling.
2007 e 2008 - ALICE VIEIRA (autora)
Alice Vieira wrote Rosa, minha irmã Rosa, her first book for young readers,
which won the Children’s and Young People’s Literature Prize awarded to
commemorate the International Year of the Child (1980). Based on the theme
of pre-adolescence and adolescence, the narrative stands out for the poetic
and almost magical form in which she deals with her subjects. Solitude amongst
the young, adult/child relationships and amongst friends are the recurring
themes in her work, stressing the authenticity and psychological aspects of her
writing. After winning the prize, Alice Vieira continued to write books for
younger readers. Her texts deal with contemporary issues – consumerism, the
influence of television on how children are brought up – and the issues affecting
young people in everyday life: friendship, loneliness, family relationships, how
children relate to adults (Os olhos de Ana Marta) or how children relate to
senior citizens (Às dez a porta fecha; Um fio de fumo nos confins do mar).
2007 - LUÌSA DACOSTA (autora)
The choice of Luísa Dacosta as a nominee for the Astrid Lindgren Prize is based
on the recognition of the work of an author who has made a crucial contribution
to Portuguese literature for children. The beauty of her texts, the rigor and the
quality of her prose, the care with which she treats the social contexts of her
characters, and principally, her presiding attention to the lives of children,
make Luísa Dacosta one of the most important, and one of the most sensitive
writers in the Portuguese language. All of her works for children open with a
motto that perfectly characterizes her world, in dreams freedom lies.