Mia Couto

António Emílio Leite Couto, better known as Mia Couto, was born in 1955 in Beira, Mozambique, to a family of Portuguese emigrants. Although he initially studied medicine, he soon abandoned the course and turned to journalism. With Mozambique’s independence, he became a reporter and later director of the Mozambique Information Agency (AIM), the weekly magazine Tempo, and the newspaper Notícias. In 1985, he left journalism to return to study, this time focusing on biology and ecology, a field he now teaches at the Eduardo Mondlane University. As a biologist, he has conducted research into coastal management and has collected myths, legends, and beliefs associated with the traditional management of natural resources.

Mia Couto is a storyteller and a ‘writer of the land’, exploring the deep connections between human nature and the earth through a richly inventive language filled with neologisms. He is currently the most translated and widely published Mozambican author abroad and one of the best-selling foreign authors in Portugal. His works have been translated and published in 24 countries, with several adapted for theatre and cinema. Couto has received numerous national and international awards for his literary work, including the Vergílio Ferreira Prize (1999) and the Latin Union Prize for Romance Literatures (2007). His novel Sleepwalking Land was named one of the ten best African books of the 20th century.