Maria Cremilda Martins Fernandes Alves de Lima (born 25 March 1940 in

Luanda Luanda () is the capital and largest city in Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Angola's administrative centre, its chief seaport ...

) is an Angolan children's book author.

Life

Cremilda de Lima was born on 25 March 1940 in the capital of the Portuguese colony of Angola, Luanda. After her education she attended several courses for teacher training, first from 1962 to 1963 in Bié, then from 1963 to 1964 in Luanda. Afterwards, Lima began to work as a primary school teacher, first in

Malanje Malanje is the capital city of Malanje Province in Angola, with a population of 455,000 (2014 census), and a municipality, with a population of 506,847 (2014 census). Projected to be the thirteenth fastest growing city on the African continent be ...

. In 1965 she began teaching primary school in Luanda. After Angola's independence in 1975, new possibilities were opened for Lima with regard to training and work. She joined committee of the

Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

in 1977, which dealt with the development of a curriculum and revision of textbooks. She was a member of committee until 1991. In 1987, she graduated from a course in scientific and educational area at the Escola Superior de Educação de Setúbal, and a Portuguese-didactics course at the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...

. This was followed by a pedagogy course at Instituto Superior de Ciências da Educação in Luanda from 1992 to 1993 and another in education until 2003 at the Escola Superior de Educação in Portuguese

Leiria Leiria (; cel-x-proto, ɸlāryo) is a city and municipality in the Central Region of Portugal. It is the 2nd largest city in that same region, with a municipality population of 128,640 (as of 2021) in an area of . It is the seat of its own distr ...

. Lima began writing her first children's books early in life and joined the Angolan Writers Union ( União dos Escritores Angolanos) in 1984. Meanwhile, Lima has published numerous children's books and is one of the most famous children's book authors in Angola. She has complained about the lack of dissemination of children's books and lamented that most children of Angola "had never seen a book". Lima called for the creation of a "National Literature Plan". She argued that the ministries of Culture and Education should work together to develop a taste for reading among the youth of Angola.

Awards

Cremilda de Lima has been nominated for the international

Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award ( sv, Litteraturpriset till Astrid Lindgrens minne) is an international children's literary award established by the Swedish government in 2002 to honour the Swedish children's author Astrid Lindgren (1907–200 ...

twice (2008 and 2009). The prize was founded by the Swedish government and is given for commitment and distinguished merit for children and youth literature. In 2008, she was honored the Angolan Ministry of Culture with a certificate of honor for her services to Angolan children's literature. In 2016, Lima received the National Prize of Culture and Arts in the literature category. Jury president António Fonseca called her "one of the pioneers" of Angolan children's literature.

Works

* ''O Tambarino dourado'' (1982) * ''Os Kandengues desfilam no carnaval'' (2015) * ''Tetembwa Ya Dipanda'' (auf Kimbundu, 2016) * ''Uma Aventura nas Nuvens'' (2016) * ''Brincadeira ao Luar'' (2016)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lima, Cremilda 1940 births Living people Angolan writers People from Luanda