Djaimila Pereira de Almeida

Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida is a Portuguese novelist and essayist of partial African descent. She was born in Luanda, Angola, in 1982, but grew up near Lisbon. She completed a PhD in literary theory from the University of Lisbon. She is the author of Esse Cabelo [That Hair], Ajudar a cair, Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso, Pintado com o pé and A visão das plantas. Her writing has appeared in granta.com, Blog da Companhia das Letras, Granta Portugal, Serrote, Zum, Pessoa, Ler, Buala, and elsewhere. She is a contributor for the Brazilian magazine Quatro Cinco Um.

That Hair was released in an English translation by Eric M. B. Becker in 2020.

This Hair, her first book, published in 2015, combines biographical elements with novel and essay and starts from the experience of a black-skinned, curly-haired girl from Angola in the Portuguese society of the mid-1980s. She started writing it when she left academic life, however, she claims to find a relationship between the book and her doctoral thesis.

She has published work in Ler, Granta, Serrote Magazine, Zum Magazine, Common Knowledge, Pessoa Magazine, Words Without Borders, and has written in the blog of the publisher Companhia das Letras. She writes for Quatro Cinco Um Magazine.

In March 2021, she was appointed consultant to the Civil House of the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

Awards Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso was awarded the Prémio Literário Fundação Inês de Castro, 2018; the Prémio Literário Fundação Eça de Queiroz, 2019; and the Prêmio Oceanos, 2019.

Books

2015, Esse Cabelo. Teorema. . 2017, Esse Cabelo. Leya. . 2017, Ajudar a cair. Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos. . 2018, Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso. Companhia das Letras. . 2019, Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso. Companhia das Letras / Brazil. . 2019, Pintado com o pé. Relógio D’Água Editores. . 2019, A Visão das Plantas. Relógio D'Água Editores. .