Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida
Ana Djaimilia dos Santos Pereira de Almeida Brito is a Portuguese writer whose pen name is Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida. She was born in Luanda in 1982 and was brought up in the suburbs of Lisbon. She graduated in Portuguese Studies from the NOVA University of Lisbon. 'Amadores', her MA dissertation in Literary Theory, written in 2006, was awarded the Best Dissertation Prize in 2010 by the Centre for Portuguese Literature at Coimbra University. This is a piece of research that theorizes about amateurism and argues why the concept of an amateur attitude can only be understood in public terms. She also holds a PhD in Literary Theory from the University of Lisbon (2012) with a dissertation entitled 'Inseparabilidade'. By examining the extent to which a person is inseparable from her own life, Almeida rescues the notion of 'agency', and argues that the acknowledgement of inseparability, from which springs our response to fatalism, is what allows our considerations about people’s motivations to become truthful and just. Pintado com o pé, published in 2019, includes the essays 'Inseparabilidade' and 'Amadores', taken from her PhD and MA dissertations.
As well as non-fiction books and plays, she has published several works of fiction, both novels and novellas, for example, Esse cabelo (2015), Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso (2018) and Três Histórias de Esquecimento (2022). Her books have been published in Portugal, Brazil, the USA, Italy, Argentina, Switzerland, China, not to mention being translated into Arabic, Catalan, Danish and Slovak.
Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida. Tecelã de Mundos Passados e Presentes, the first critical volume dedicated to her work, edited by Sandra Sousa and Sheila Khan, will be published in 2023, demonstrating the extent to which her work has become a landmark in contemporary Portuguese literature. By depicting different aspects of the life of the Angolan diaspora in Portugal and of the young Portuguese generation of African descent, her books of fiction have contributed significantly towards bringing diverse, hitherto unheard voices into the literary debate of postcolonial Portuguese society that had not been present before. On the one hand, she has created characters, such as Cartola, the Angolan 'assimilado', in Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso, and Boa Morte, the former Angolan soldier fighting alongside the Portuguese troops during the colonial wars, in Maremoto, which expand and enrich the range of fictional characters in contemporary Portuguese literature on Portuguese colonialism which, until now, mainly represented the former Portuguese white war veteran and the 'retornado' (returned coloniser). In addition, by exploring historical figures such as that of the slave trader, in A Visão das Plantas, and that of the 19th-century Black servant, in 'Bruma', the third narrative of Três Histórias de Esquecimento, both superficially mentioned but hitherto unexplored in Portuguese literature, her writing shows how much Portuguese literature reproduces the historical oblivion in which Portuguese memory narratives are immersed. On the other hand, by exploring the post-memories of the Portuguese generation of African descent, Almeida’s writing expands the framework with which to approach the notion of trauma and loss which is primarily associated with the postcolonial experience of the white Portuguese.
Almeida has won or been shortlisted for the major prizes awarded for literature in Portuguese. In 2013, she was one of the winners of the Essay Prize awarded by Revista Serrote, a periodical published by the Instituto Moreira Salles, in Brazil. The English translation of Esse cabelo (That Hair) was shortlisted for the PEN America Translation Prize and was voted Best Translation of the Year by World Literature Today magazine. Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso won the 2019 Oceanos Prize, the 2018 Inês de Castro Foundation Prize, and the 2019 Eça de Queiroz Prize. A Visão das Plantas came second in the 2020 Oceanos Awards, was shortlisted for the 2019 Fernando Namora Prize for Literature 2019, for the 2019 PEN Club/Narrative and for the 2020 APE/DGLAB Grand Prize for Novel and Novella. Almeida’s As Telefones was shortlisted for the 2021 APE/DGLAB Grand Prize for Novel and Novella. In 2022, Maremoto was shortlisted for the Casino da Póvoa Literary Prize. In 2018, she was awarded a 12-month literary bursary by the Direção-Geral do Livro, dos Arquivos e das Bibliotecas (DGLAB) of the Ministry of Culture.
She has written opinion pieces for a range of newspapers and magazines around the world, including the New York Times, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Revista Serrote, Common Knowledge, ZUM, Contemporânea, Marie Claire Brasil, Folha de São Paulo, and La Repubblica. She writes a column for Brazil’s Quatro Cinco Um literary magazine. She has also blogged for the website of Brazilian publishing house Companhia das Letras. In March 2021, she was appointed consultant in matters involving social inclusion at the Casa Civil [Civil House] of the Presidency of the Republic, an institution that integrates a group of consultants from various fields to advise the President. In Spring 2022, she was writer-in-residence at the Literaturhaus Zürich. She is Assistant Professor at New York University, teaching on the module The Afro-Diasporic Body and Mind. In 2023, Almeida received the FLUL Alumni Prize for her notable lifetime achievements.
Compiled by Margarida Rendeiro
Bibliography
Fiction
Esse Cabelo: A Tragicomédia de um cabelo que cruza a História de Portugal e Angola (Lisbon: Teorema, 2015; Rio de Janeiro: Leya, 2017; Lisbon: Relógio d’Água, 2020; São Paulo: Todavia, 2022)
Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso (Lisbon: Companhia das Letras, 2018; São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2019)
A Visão das Plantas (Lisbon: Relógio d’Água, 2019; São Paulo: Todavia, 2021)
As Telefones (Lisbon: Relógio d’Água, 2020)
Maremoto (Lisbon: Relógio d’Água, 2021)
Três História de Esquecimento (Lisbon: Relógio d’Água, 2021)
Ferry (Lisbon: Relógio d’Água, 2022)
Toda a ferida é uma beleza [with illustrations by Isabel Baraona] (Lisbon: Relógio d’Água, 2023)
Non-Fiction
Ajudar a cair (Lisbon: Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos, Coleção Retratos, 2017)
Pintado com o pé (Lisbon: Relógio d’Água, 2019)
Regras de Isolamento (Lisbon: Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos, 2020)
Os Gestos (Lisbon: Relógio d’Água, 2021)
O que é ser uma escritora negra hoje, de acordo comigo (São Paulo: Todavia, 2023)
Drama
Pérola sem rapariga [with Director Zia Soares] (2023)
Irene [written for the 15th edition of PANOS – palcos novos, palavras nossas, a project run by the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II] (2023)
Translations into Foreign Languages
Catalan
Els meus cabells [Translation of Esse cabelo by Sebastià Bennasar] (Gandia/Valencia: Lletra Impresa Edicions, 2020)
Chinese
贾伊米莉亚·佩雷拉·德阿尔梅达著 ; 桑大鹏译. [Translation of Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso by Ru Zhiwei and Gou Wanying] (Chengdu: Sichuan Literature and Art, 2022)
Danish
Mit hår [Translation of Esse Cabelo by Tine Likke Prado] (Gentofte: Aurora Boreal, 2022)
English
That Hair [Translation of Esse cabelo by Eric M.B. Becker] (Portland, OR: Tin House Books, 2017)
German
Seebeben [Translation of Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso by Barbara Less-Correia Mesquita) (Zurich: Unionsverlag, 2022)
Im Augen der Pflanzen [Translation of A Visão das Plantas by Barbara Less-Correia Mesquita) (Zurich: Unionsverlag, 2023)
Italian
Questi Capelli [Translation of Esse cabelo by Marta Silvetti and Giorgio di Marchis (Rome: La Nuova Frontiera, 2022)
Slovakian
Luanda, Lisabon, Raj [Translation of Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso by Silvia Slaničková] (Bratislava: Portugalský Inštitút, 2022)
Spanish
Ese cabelo [Translation of Esse cabelo by Bárbara Belloc and Teresa Arijón] (Buenos Aires: Edhasa, 2021)
Criticism
Biasio, Nicola: ‘Diálogo da natureza e um pirata: a ecocrítica por uma perspectiva descolonizadora em A Visão das Plantas de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Abril – NEPA / UFF, 13.27, 2021, pp. 137-149)
Brito, Regina Helena Pires de and Trevisan, Ana Luísa: ‘Representações do sujeito subalterno em contextos pós-coloniais: uma reflexão sobre Esse cabelo e Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso, de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Verbum, 10.2, 2021, pp. 142-154)
Coutinho, Ana Paula: ‘Vozes migrantes do exílio pós-colonial: para uma leitura transversal de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Revista Mulemba, 14.27, 2022, pp. 121-137)
Ferreira, Patrícia Martinho: ‘Esse Cabelo ou um testemunho das identidades hifenizadas’ in Órfãos do império: Heranças coloniais na literatura portuguesa contemporânea by Patrícia Martinho Ferreira (Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2021, pp. 230-247)
─: ‘“Algum mulato tem pai?” Orfandade e identidade em António Lobo Antunes e Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Santa Barbara Portuguese Studies, 6 , 2021, pp. 1-22)
Foz, Romeu: ‘(Re)configurações do corpo no/do Portugal pós-colonial em Esse Cabelo de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Journal of Lusophone Studies, 6.2. 2021, pp. 51-71)
Franco, Roberta Guimarães: ‘A ‘inseparabilidade’ dos trânsitos na obra de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Abril – NEPA / UFF, 13.27, 2021, pp. 109-124)
Girotto, Alice: ‘Os “álbuns despenteados” em Esse Cabelo de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Materialidade da Literatura, 9.1, 2021, pp.185-198)
Gonçalves, Bianca Mafra: ‘Para uma Filosofia do Cabelo: uma análise de Esse cabelo de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ [MA Thesis submitted to Universidade de São Paulo (USP), 2021]
Gonçalves, Rute Lages and Algecira de Macêdo Mendes: ‘A memória e a construção da identidade negra no romance angolano Esse cabelo, de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Revista Crioula, 29, 2022, pp. 35-46)
Khan, Sheila: ‘Cartas, Solidão e Voz para uma Pós-Memória: Maremoto, de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Abril – NEPA/UFF, 13.27, 2021, pp. 125-135)
─: ‘Saudade, Solidão e Silêncio em Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso de Djaimilia Pereira e em Reino Transcendente de Yaa Gyasi’ in The Africas in the World and the World in the Africas: African Literatures and Comparativism ed. by Sandra Sousa and Nazir Ahmed Can (Holden, MA: QuodManet, 2022, pp. 229-252)
Lima, Norma Sueli Rosa: ‘Esse cabelo em Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso: Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida e a experiência do desenraizamento na tentativa de integração’ (Revista Convergência Lusíada, 31.43, 2020, pp. 12-24)
Macedo, Ana Gabriela: ‘Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, As Telefones. Homenagem ao “Género Literário da Diáspora” e a Reinvenção da Narrativa Poética’ in Mulheres, Artes e Ditadura: Diálogos interartísticos e narrativas da memória ed. by Ana Gabriela Macedo (Vila Nova de Famalicão: Húmus/Cehum, 2022, pp. 17-29)
McCombe, Erin: ‘The Right to Represent, Reproduce, and Refuse: Memory, Photography, and Postcolonial Ekphrasis in the Work of Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies, 34/35, 2022, pp. 353-372)
Medeiros, Paulo de: ‘Memórias pós-imperiais: Luuanda, de José Luandino Vieira, e Luanda, Lisboa, Paraiso, de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Língua-Lugar: Literatura, História, Estudos Culturais, 1.1, 2020, pp. 136-149)
Nascimento, Evando: ‘O não-humanismo dos vegetais: A Visão das Plantas, de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Revista Pessoa, 10 May 2021)
Rendeiro, Margarida: ‘Como a Ficção Póscolonial pode contribuir para uma Discussão sobre Reparação Histórica: Leitura de As Telefones (2020) de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Comunicação e Sociedade, 41, 2022, pp. 43-59)
─: ‘Peripheries of the Revolution and Geographies of Exclusion in Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’s Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso’ in Contested Communities: Small, Minority and Minor Literatures in Europe ed. by Kate Averis, Margaret Littler and Godela Weiss-Sussex (Cambridge: Legenda, 2023, pp. 51-64)
Ribeiro, Margarida Calafate: ‘Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso?’ (Buala, 26 December 2019) available online at https://www.buala.org/pt/a-ler/luanda-lisboa-paraiso
─: ‘Viagens na Minha Terra de “outros’ ocidentais”’ in Heranças pós-coloniais nas literaturas de língua portuguesa ed, by Margarida Calafate Ribeiro and Phillip Rothwell (Porto: Afrontamento, 2019, pp. 291-308)
Silva, Isabela Lapa: 'Raízes, rotas e cabelos: uma análise de Esse cabelo, de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida' [Master's thesis submitted to the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, 2022]
Sousa, Sandra and Khan, Sheila (eds): Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida. Tecelã de Mundos Passados e Presentes (Braga: Universidade do Minho, 2023)
Sousa, Sandra: ‘A figura do pai em Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso e Purple Hibiscus: uma história de contrastes’ in The Africas in the World and the World in the Africas: African Literatures and Comparativism ed. by Sandra Sousa and Nazir Ahmed Can. (Holden, MA.: Quod Manet, 2022, pp. 301-321)
─: ‘Reclaiming an Individual Space: the Angolan Diaspora in Portugal’ in Twenty-first Century Arab and African diasporas in Spain, Portugal and Latin America ed. by Cristián H. Ricci (London: Routledge, 2022, pp. 135-149)
─: ‘A descoberta de uma identidade pós-colonial em Esse Cabelo, de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ (Abril – NEPA / UFF, 9.18, 2017, pp. 57-68)
Teotônio, Raffaella Cristina Alves: ‘Caderno de memórias coloniais e Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso: mulheres narram as ruínas do império’ (Abril – NEPA / UFF, 13.27, 2021, pp. 151-166)
Torrão, Nazaré: ‘Espelho meu, diz-me quem sou e quem poderia ter sido! Uma análise de Esse Cabelo, de Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’ in Exiliance au féminin dans le monde lusophone (XXe – XXIe siècles) ed. by Maria Graciete Besse et al. (Paris: Editions Hispaniques, 2017, pp. 281-288)
Interviews/in the Media
Interviews
Lucas, Isabel: ‘Uma rapariga africana em Lisboa’. Interview with Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida. (Público, 2 October 2015) available online at https://www.publico.pt/2015/10/02/culturaipsilon/entrevista/uma-rapariga-africana-em-lisboa-1709352
─: ‘Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida: Não é só raça, nem só género, é querer participar na grande conversa da literatura’. Interview with Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida (Público, 20 December 2018) available online at https://www.publico.pt/2018/12/20/culturaipsilon/noticia/djaimilia-1854988
Videos
Território FLIP 2017: Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida (21 August 2017) Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x-09MQQJC8
Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida reads Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso (5 May 2020) Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9deq3k6K1pw
Vamos beber café (RTP2 programme with José Navarro de Andrade. Episode 1: Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, 8 November 2021) Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HQ_ZY7ISuo
Sila, Adriana Ferreira: Interview with Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida (Festival Serrote, 18 April 2023) Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj-Ck1bqMAM