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Mozambican writer Mia Couto has won the PEN/Nabokov 2025 Prize on Friday, becoming the first Portuguese-language author to be honoured with this PEN America award for international literature, the publishing house Caminho revealed. “PEN America is awarding the PEN/Nabokov Prize for International Literature…
The Michelin Guide handed out new stars to 68 restaurants in France on Monday at a ceremony that celebrated emerging young talents and proposed food as a tonic for the world’s worries.
Two restaurants joined the highest and most coveted three-star category in Michelin’s 2025 France guide, namely Christopher Coutanceau in western La Rochelle and seafood specialist Le Coquillage in northern Brittany.
“The world is worried, the tensions, crises, war at the gates of Europe,” Michelin Guide director Gwendal Poullennec said on stage at the ceremony in the eastern city of Metz.
“And in the middle of all that, men and women continue to cook, welcome people, pass on knowledge and to create beauty,” he told a crowd of 600 chefs.
The famous red bible for gastronomes still makes and breaks reputations, despite increasing competition from rival food lists and the rise of social media influencers.
France has the highest number of Michelin-endorsed restaurants of the 50 destinations covered by the guide around world, with 31 three stars, 81 two stars and 542 with one star.
Next generation of French chefs
Among the notable winners on Monday was Philippe Etchebest, who won a second star for his restaurant Maison Nouvelle in Bordeaux.
The 58-year-old, who made a name for himself as a celebrity food judge on TV shows such as Top Chef, said the 2025 guide reflected the strength of the next generation of French chefs.
(with AFP)
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Dunkirk head coach Luis Castro urged his squad to savour the challenge of playing against Paris Saint-Germain’s constellation of international stars for a place in the final of the Coupe de France.
“They’re the best team that we’re likely to play against,” said the 44-year-old Portuguese on the eve of the clash at the Pierre Stade Mauroy in Lille on Tuesday night.
“Like any team, they have weak points and strong points … and there are a lot of strong points.”
On Saturday, PSG annihilated relegation-threatened Saint-Etienne 6-1 to establish a 21-point lead over second-placed Monaco.
PSG require one point from their last seven games to win a fourth consecutive domestic championship and a record-extending 13th top flight crown.
Dunkerque prepared for the match with a 2-0 setback at Bastia on Saturday to leave them eight points adrift of the second automatic spot for promotion from Ligue 2 to Ligue 1.
Recovery
“We don’t have much time to recover and prepare but it’s been like that before,” added Castro who made his name in his native Portugal coaching the Benfica under-19 side to the domestic title as well as the junior equivalent of the Champions League and Intercontinental Cup.
“We have to play with our own identity,” Castro said. “We will look at how PSG play and see how we can play against a team like that.
“The second-half was sensational, with lots of situations and goal-scoring opportunities,” Enrique added.
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The people of Shetland, a group of islands north of Scotland, are welcoming the arrival of spring in dramatic style – by burning viking longships. Up Helly Aa was first celebrated in 1881 and is unique to these islands. But it’s a tradition that is evolving, with a woman at the heart of it for the first time.
Three hundred people, torches in hand, march through the main street of the fishing village of Cullivoe, on the island of Yell. At the port, they’re met by a group of axe-wielding Vikings gathered around a wooden longship.
The leader of the group sets fire to his drakkar – a Viking longship. In the dark of night, one by one, the rest throw their torches onto the blaze. This is the climax of Up Helly Aa.
Alice Jamieson has been preparing for this moment for two years. The 35-year-old, a former Royal Navy nurse now working as a home carer, is the first woman to take on the role of Viking chieftain – a position until now reserved for men.
“I took a week to decide whether or not to accept. But I grew up here, Up Helly Aa celebrates the community and it’s always been part of my life,” she says.
For the past year, she’s been in charge of organising the four days of celebrations, with the help of her squad of around 20 people.
Jamieson has had to raise funds, build a dragon-headed Viking boat by hand and design emblems, costumes and weapons. Every year a new boat is built and every year a new design is chosen for the costumes and shields: a wolf, a phœnix, a weapon, a rune, a Celtic cross.
The end of winter solstice
The analogy between the cremation ceremony and the change of season is easy to see.