The President of the Municipal Chamber of Santiago do Cacém, Bruno Gonçalves Pereira, congratulated the author, whose work received unanimous support from the jury. He highlighted the quality of her writing and her innovative approach to short stories. The mayor recalled Manuel da Fonseca as a "major figure in Portuguese literature" and an "exemplary" person close to the community, emphasizing that the award aims to "continue to value the work of Manuel da Fonseca and his example".
Rita Estanqueiro described the award as a "challenge" due to its prestige and the need to organize her ideas differently to write a collection of short stories. The author confessed to being "ecstatic" upon being announced as the winner and expressed the emotion of seeing the work published.
Regarding the collection, she explained that it explores "what fascinates me regarding the details of everyday life," based on the idea that "up close, no one is normal." For Estanqueiro, writing is "something very organic" that entered her life as a child, driven by reading and the desire to tell stories.
Representing the jury, the Vice-President of the Portuguese Association of Literary Critics, Maria Paula Mendes Coelho, presented the reasons for the decision, praising the poetic and agile approach, the literary attention to prosaic elements of daily life, the fluency of the verb, its originality and sensitivity, and the thematic and formal structure that gives coherence to the unpublished work, providing a "ductile reading." The jury for this 16th edition also included Ana Margarida de Carvalho (representative of the Portuguese Writers' Association) and Sandra Isabel das Candeias Guerreiro Dias (researcher and Guest Associate Professor at the School of Education of Beja).
The first prize, worth four thousand euros, includes the publication of the work by the Municipality of Santiago do Cacém.
