Cultura Madeira - John Dos Passos Prize

In its first edition, the John Dos Passos Prize was initially sponsored in partnership with the Municipality of Ponta do Sol and the former Regional Directorate for Cultural Affairs, through the John Dos Passos Library. It only had three editions that awarded prizes to, respectively: 1st Edition (2007) – Fiction Prose Category, the book O Acidente, by Mário Cabral; 2nd Edition (2009) – Historical or Literary Essay Category, the work História Contemporânea de Portugal. Do 25 de Abril à Actualidade, by António José Telo; 3rd Edition (2011) – Fiction Prose Category, the book Jerusalém, by Mia Couto.
It was resumed in 2019 by the Regional Secretariat for Tourism and Culture, through the Regional Directorate for Culture and the John Dos Passos Cultural Center, as it is considered that "it is important to disseminate John Dos Passos’ works and memory further and, at the same time, encourage literary production and historical and literary research. The institution of a literary award dedicated to the aforementioned author is an appropriate and effective means to do so".
Thus, in the Historical or Literary Essay Category, the 4th edition of the Prize (2019) was awarded to the work O Século dos Prodígios - A Ciência no Portugal da Expansão, by Onésimo Teotónio Almeida.
In this year of 2021, the winner of the 5th Edition of the John Dos Passos Prize in the Literary Modality – Fiction Prose (Novel or Short Story Anthology) was Oração a que faltam joelhos, by Jacinto Lucas Pires.