Minister for Culture,
Chairman of the Company Estoril-Sol,
Mayor of Cascais,
Dr. Vasco Graça Moura,
Honourable prize winner,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are here today to pay tribute to the winner of the Fernando Namora Prize, and to present him with the deserved distinction which the panel unanimously awarded.

It is a tribute to which I subscribe with great pleasure, not just because of the prize winning book, but also because of Mário Cláudio’s long and successful career.

The public’s interest in his works as well as the translations into many languages speak for themselves.

The number and diversity of prizes with which he has been awarded leave us with no doubts as to the quality of his novels and other published works, covering practically all types of literature.

We are facing a reputed author, an author whose work and creativity have gained both national and international acceptance.

But we are equally facing an author who associates, in the original concept of his writings, an enormous attention to our common History, to our ancestors, especially to those who better knew how to artistically express our feelings and our way of life.

As was the case with previous works, it is also to one of those major figures of our culture – Camilo Castelo-Branco – that this prize winning book looked for inspiration.

The past and the present have thus come together in a further novel, where Portuguese literature shows all its vitality and its capability for renewal throughout successive generations.

I thus want to warmly congratulate Mário Cláudio and to wish him the same or even greater success in the works he will surely continue writing.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This prize has as a sponsor another great author, novelist Fernando Namora, who departed from us some 20 years ago, and to whom I would also like to pay tribute here today.

Author of a vast work of fiction, Fernando Namora knew how to interpret with great sensitivity his experience as a physician and the life in our villages and towns in the middle of last century.

His stories and novels gave pleasure to millions of readers.

Some were adapted to the cinema and to television, continuing to ensure success with the public.

Many were translated worldwide.

And The New York Times, on the day of his death, 31 January 1989, reported the news, stating that «one of the better known Portuguese writers» had passed away.

We must not put into oblivion persons such as Fernando Namora, who knew how to bring prestige to our Country and enrich that which is probably the deepest immutability of our identity: Portuguese language and culture.

Whilst reviving the memory of this man, attributing his name to a literary prize which distinguishes our foremost authors, the Estoril Casino also deserves congratulations.

Congratulations for the Fernando Namora Prize.

Congratulations on how you have actively attached to your entrepreneurial activities an outstanding dimension in the area of culture.

Thank you.