Mozambique’s Mia Couto wins prestigious award.

“He is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, and biologist, a writer whose first novel Sleepwalking Land has been called one of the best African books of the twentieth-century. Mia Couto has been described by Niyi Afalabi as a “revolutionary optimist” and by translator David Brookshaw as the “most original and prolific voice of his generation.”

And this past Friday, Mozambique’s Mia Couto was honored with the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature, whose previous winners include such literary luminaries as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Elizabeth Bishop, Czeslaw Milosz, Octavio Paz, David Malouf, Adam Zagajewski, and Rohinton Mistry. Read Dennis Abrams interview with this fascinating man here.