Mia Couto, born in Beira/Mozambique in 1955, is among the most prominent African writers. After studying medicine and biology in Maputo, he worked as a journalist. Besides writing, he is now a biologist and teaches at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo. His unique style, influenced by animist realism and the lexicon of Mozambique, has revolutionised African narrative in the Portuguese language. Since 1998, Mia Couto has been a corresponding member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. He was awarded the National Prize for Fiction (1995), the Virgilio Ferreira Prize (1999), the Camões Prize for Literature (2013) and the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature (2014). He was among the six finalists of the Man Booker International Prize 2015 with his body of work and 2017 his novel CONFESSION OF THE LIONESS was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. In 2020, he won the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature for his trilogy THE SANDS OF THE EMPEROR, and in 2022, he was honoured with the title of Doctor honoris causa by the Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). In 2024, Couto was awarded the renowned FIL Prize in Romance Languages.
