The winner’s eye – Escorpião

Name of article: The winner’s eye
Name of publication: Escorpião
Date: 19 October 2009
Country: Mozambique
Theme: Culture
Skills: Perspective
Genre: News
GEM classification: Gender blind

Description:
João Paulo Borges Coelho is the winner of the 100,000 Euro Leya Prize, the highest distinction in Portuguese literature. Coelho was surprised to win the prize because he was not interested in entering the contest, but his wife insisted.

Analysis:
This article ignores the role of Coelho’s wife (whose name was not even mentioned in the article) who, in fact was responsible for Coelho winning the Leya Prize. Coelho himself confessed that he was not interested in contesting, but his wife insisted he should submit his book.

The story only focuses on the end result and does not acknowledge the important role played by the wife of the winner. There are some missed opportunities in this story which could have enriched the story by bringing in Coelho’s wife to present the reason why she insisted on submitting the text for this prize.

The story raises some questions as to whether the author of this story would have used the same approach if the winner was the wife and the husband the one who had insisted. Eventually in such a scenario the husband would have been highlighted as the key person in the story.