Dina Salústio

Dina Salústio (born Bernardina Oliveira; 1941) is a Cape Verdean novelist, who is the first woman from the country to publish a novel, and the first writer from the country to have a novel translated to English.

Biography Dina Salústio is the pseudonym of Bernardina Oliveira, who was born in 1941 in Santo Antão. After training as a social worker, she worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A prominent literary activist in Cabo Verde, she co-founded the Associação Escritores Cabo-Verdianos, as well as two magazines, Mudjer and Ponto e Vírgula. Its translation, The Madwoman of Serrano by Jethro Soutar, is the first English translation of a novel from Cabo Verde. In 1994 she was awarded the national prize for children's literature.

Reception Salústio's works, both creative and non-fiction, address issues relating to women's rights and Cabo Verdean society and centring female perspectives. Her works are considered an important contribution to postcolonial literature of Cabo Verde. She is also viewed as a writer who counters the masculine perspectives that can be prevalent in African literature.

Selected works

Novels

A Louca de Serrano (The Madwoman of Serrano), 1998 Filhas do Vento (Daughters of the Wind), 2009 Veromar (See-the-sea), 2019

Short stories

Mornas eram as noites (Warm were the Nights), 1994 Filhos de Deus (God's Children), 2018

Non-fiction

Violência contra as mulheres'' (Violence Against Women), 1994