Luanda - The Angolan Letters Academy congratulated João Melo, for being among the 21 best African writers in 2023, with “Angola is Wherever I Plant My Field” book.
The distinction was made by the cultural magazine African Arguments, published in Kenya.
According to a press release, the Board of Directors of the Angolan Academy of Letters welcomes the international recognition of its member's artistic and literary work and the appreciation of his frequent structural and linguistic experiences, taken to literature.
According to the report, the work's editor Kenechi Uzor considered that the collection of short stories, Angola is wherever I plant my field, shows a current and modern Africa, with all its complexities.
The book, which contains 18 short stories, was released by Iskanchi Press publishing company. The work is a translated version of the original title “The day Donald Duck ate Daisy for the first time”.
Born in Luanda, Aníbal João da Silva Melo graduated in Social Communication and completed a master's degree in Communication and Culture, in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). He is the author of "The serial killer and other stories that are laughable or maybe not", "Filhos da Pátria", among other works.
A founding member of the Angolan Writers Union and the Angolan Letters Academy, João Melo was deputy to the National Assembly (Parliament) and minister of Social Communication until 2019. He won the 2009 National Culture and Arts Prize, in the literature category, for his literary work as a whole.
He has poems and short stories published in various anthologies, magazines and literary websites in English, French, German, Arabic and Mandarin. EH/CF/DOJ
