Mia Couto

thumb|Mia Couto (2006) Mia Couto (born 5 July 1955), pseudonym of António Emílio Leite Couto, is a Mozambican writer and the winner of the 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 2013 Camões Prize. Quotes Confession of the Lioness: A Novel Every morning the gazelle wakes up knowing she must run faster than the lion or will be dead. Every morning the lion wakes up knowing he must run faster than the gazelle or he'll starve. It doesn't matter if you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun rises you better start to run. In war, the poor are killed. In peace, the poor dies. There is only a way of escape from a place: is leaving ourselves. There is only a way of leaving ourselves: is loving someone. Só há um modo de escapar de um lugar: é sairmos de nós. Só há um modo de sairmos de nós: é amarmos alguém. Sleepwalking Land - I don't like blacks, Kindzu. - What? So, who do you like? The whites? - I do not, too. - I already know: you likes the indians, your race. - No. I like mens that doesn't have a race. That's why I like you, Kindzu. "The greatest poverty is the inability to dream." Words Without Borders, interview on language, literature and imagination. "We do not inherit only a country. We inherit the responsibility to imagine it." Neustadt International Prize acceptance speech. "Every language carries a way of seeing the world." The Paris Review interview discussing language, identity and writing. "Writing is not about giving answers. It is about learning how to ask better questions." The Guardian interview discussing literature and the creative process. "A writer does not create a world; he discovers the worlds hidden inside people." Words Without Borders interview discussing storytelling and memory. "Writing, if questioned from the point of view of place of speech, dies. I only write because I travel to others. I am a woman, I am a child, I am old, I am others when I write. If I can only write within the competence of my place of speech as I should, I only speak about myself. So, what creates literature is this capacity to be another," Mia Couto, interview with UOL TAB, 2018. “The language of the other, suddenly, is the great instrument for creating an identity of one's own.” Mia Couto, interview published by the Feira do Livro / Câmara Municipal de Campinas, 2017. "Identity can only be spoken of in the plural." Mia Couto, interview published by the Feira do Livro / Câmara Municipal de Campinas, 2017. External links Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:Catholics from Mozambique Category:Short story writers from Mozambique Category:Novelists from Mozambique Category:Poets from Mozambique Category:Children's authors Category:Biologists from Mozambique