Mia Couto Wins $50,000 Neustadt Literature Prize

That itchy feeling you should be reading more widely? Scratch it with Mia Couto, the Portuguese writer from Mozambique, who has just won the Neustadt Prize worth $50,000. His gods are the magic realists of Brazil and Colombia, so do not be surprised that his brief novels are narrated by a dead man (Under the Frangipani) or an eleven-year-old boy who believes his father's lie that they are the last five people on Earth (The Tuner of Silences). Two of his books have been made into movies, Sleepwalking Land and A River Called Time.

The Neustadt is a pretty big deal, awarded only every other year, and its Susan Lucci is Haruki Murakami. Although he has lost three times, some recent winners remain far more obscure to American readers: Assia Djebar, Nuruddin Farah, Alvaro Mutis, Patricia Grace, and the poet Duo Duo.