Dina Salústio
Cape Verdean novelist (born 1941)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dina Salústio (born Bernardina Oliveira; 1941) is a Cape Verdean novelist, who is the first woman from the country to publish a novel, and the first writer from the country to have a novel translated to English.
Bernardina Oliveira | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1941 (age 84–85) |
| Citizenship | Cabo Verde |
| Occupations | Novelist, journalist, short story writer, poet |
| Writing career | |
| Pen name | Dina Salústio |
| Notable work | The Madwoman of Serrano |
| Notable awards | Rosalía de Castro Award |
Biography
Dina Salústio is the pseudonym of Bernardina Oliveira, who was born in 1941 in Santo Antão.[1] After training as a social worker, she worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[1] She has also worked in Portugal and Angola as a journalist, social worker and teacher.[2]
A prominent literary activist in Cabo Verde, she co-founded the Associação Escritores Cabo-Verdianos,[3] as well as two magazines, Mudjer and Ponto e Vírgula.[1] Her novel A Louca de Serrano was the first novel to be published by a Cabo Verdean woman.[4][5] Its translation, The Madwoman of Serrano by Jethro Soutar, is the first English translation of a novel from Cabo Verde.[4][5]
Awards
In 2020, the English translation of A Louca de Serrano was short-listed for The Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.[4] In 2016, she was presented with a Rosalía de Castro Award for lifetime achievement by PEN Galicia (es).[6][7][8] In 1994 she was awarded the national prize for children's literature.[9]
Reception
Salústio's works, both creative and non-fiction, address issues relating to women's rights and Cabo Verdean society and centring female perspectives.[10][11] Her works are considered an important contribution to postcolonial literature of Cabo Verde.[12] She is also viewed as a writer who counters the masculine perspectives that can be prevalent in African literature.[13]
Selected works
External Links
- GoodReads page
- excerpt from her novel Veromar (translated into English by Nina Perotta)