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Paulo da Costa

Goodreads Author

Born

in Angola

Website

http://www.paulodacosta.ca

Twitter

paulocostaautor

Genre

Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction

Member Since

February 2013

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Born in Angola, and raised in Portugal, paulo da costa is a writer, editor and translator living in Canada. He is thrice the recipient of the James H. Gray Award for Short Nonfiction (2024, 2023 and 2020), the 2024 Outstanding Calgary Artist Award, as well as the 2003 Commonwealth First Book Prize for the Canada-Caribbean Region, the W. O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize and the Canongate Prize for short-fiction. His poetry, fiction and non-fiction have been published widely in literary magazines around the world and translated into Italian, Spanish, Serbian, Slovenian and Portuguese.

Trust the Bluer Skies: Meditations of Fatherhood, a book of creative non-fiction, was published in 2024 with University of Regina Press.

131 posts
Paulo da Costa's Blog

Ana Paula Tavares – 4 Poems in Translation

TERRACOTTA Ana Paula Tavares translated by paulo da costa published in World Literature Today 2009 Open the earth let me see myself in the mirror and find my place in emptiness among three hundred thousand terracotta virgins Open the earth, my friend this land woven of a thousand sand colours drifting from the north seeds of time where the older ones rest leaving to the feet the dance of hurrying

Combine Editions
Paulo da Costa’s books

Average rating: 4.29 · 165 ratings · 25 reviews · 18 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Scent of a Lie 4.18 avg rating — 49 ratings — published 2002 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Trust the Bluer Skies: Meditations on Fatherhood 4.50 avg rating — 30 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Green and Purple Skin of the World 4.45 avg rating — 20 ratings — published 2013 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dance the Guns to Silence: 100 Poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa by Nii Ayikwei Parkes (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Kadija Sesay (Editor), Paulo da Costa (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 4.24 avg rating — 17 ratings — published 2005	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	NW14: The Anthology of New Writing (14) by Lavinia Greenlaw (Editor), Helon Habila, Paulo da Costa (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 3.46 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 2006	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada: An Anthology by Luis Gonçalves (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Carlo Matos (Goodreads Author) (Editor), George Monteiro (Preface) 4.89 avg rating — 9 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Midwife of Torment & Other Stories 4.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Cartography of Being: Selected Poems 1967 - 2005 by Paulo da Costa (Goodreads Author) (Translator), Nuno Júdice 4.60 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	notas de rodapé it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2005 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey: Essays on Language, Identity and Writing Culture really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2015	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Paulo da Costa wrote a new blog post José Tolentino Mendonça – Three poems in translation José Tolentino Mendonça (n. 1965) is one of the most original voices of Portuguese contemporary literature. He is also an Archivist and Librarian at t Read more of this blog post »
Oct 09, 2025 01:46AM · like
Paulo Costa wants to read Yellow Watch: Journey of a Portuguese Woman by Carmelinda Scian	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Paulo Costa wants to read Bare Bones of Our Alphabet, The by Irene Marques (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Quotes by Paulo da Costa (?)

“... CEOs are the ghost writers of the political discourse ...”
― paulo da costa, Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey: Essays on Language, Identity and Writing Culture

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“It is rare to find a person who reads the silence with the fluency of stone angels ...”
― paulo da costa, Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey: Essays on Language, Identity and Writing Culture

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“I value margins, for on the margins one finds room to grow.”
― paulo da costa, Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey: Essays on Language, Identity and Writing Culture

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See all Paulo da Costa's quotes »

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Paulo’s Quotes

“... CEOs are the ghost writers of the political discourse ...”
― paulo da costa, Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey: Essays on Language, Identity and Writing Culture

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“I value margins, for on the margins one finds room to grow.”
― paulo da costa, Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey: Essays on Language, Identity and Writing Culture

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“The silence surrounding words highlights their importance, assures us that the word was weighed, polished, contemplated, and deserves the light of day. Words without such reins are excessively dumped in the sea of everyday life, such as one purges interior contaminants—dumped far away from us into an atmosphere that we unconsciously pollute and which we all share. Such words exorcise our private dementia but ironically saturate the art until it risks drowning in a bog of mushy cacophony.”
― paulo da costa, Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey: Essays on Language, Identity and Writing Culture

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“It is rare to find a person who reads the silence with the fluency of stone angels ...”
― paulo da costa, Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey: Essays on Language, Identity and Writing Culture

0 likes