$25,000 Sonangol prize winners announced

The poets Adriano Botelho de Vasconcelos, from Angola, and Vera Valentina "Di Ana", from Cape Verde, have been jointly awarded the third Sonangol Prize for Literature. The award ceremony was held in Luanda, Angola, on 22 January 2004.

The US$25,000 prize is awarded to an unpublished book by writers from Angola, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe, with the aim of fostering the creation of literature in Portuguese from these countries.

Apart from the US$12,500 each, the two winners will see their work published with assistance from Sonangol, the Angolan oil company. The books will be released on 25 May in Angola and Cape Verde.

The jury was presided over by the president of the Association of Writers of Cape Verde, Corsino Fortes, and included Sao Tomé writer Maria Costa, as well as Angolans Augusto Kambwa, Alberto Caley and Frederico Cardoso.

This is the second time the prize has been shared by Angola and Cape Verde with the 1999 prize shared between Arnaldo Santos and Carlos Araujo from Cape Verde.