Rafael Cadenas receives the Cervantes, which recovers its full normality

2023-04-24 09:32:25

With the presence this Monday in Alcalá de Henares of Rafael Cadenas (Barquisimeto, 1930), the poet of all exiles, the Cervantes prize recovers its full normality. The highest recognition of our letters once again bears in mind its winner in the centenary Auditorium of Alcalá so that King Felipe VI presents him with the award. At the age of 93, Cervantes consecrates this great poet, shy and parsimonious, who in his speech planned to explore the poetry contained in ‘Don Quixote’ before the Kings, Felipe and Letizia, and the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Minister of Culture, Miquel Iceta.

Last year his predecessor in the distinction, Cristina Peri Rossi, Uruguayan nationalized Spanish, could not attend the award ceremony. In her representation, the Argentine actress Cecilia Roth received the award, who read the thank-you speech on behalf of the octogenarian poet and storyteller whose health is very delicate.

The pandemic prevented Peri Rossi’s two predecessors, the Valencian poet and academic Francisco Brines and his Catalan colleague Joan Margarit, respective winners in 2020 and 2019, from receiving their award in Alcalá de Henares. Both, now deceased, received the diploma and medal that accredited them as winners of the Cervantes in their homes, in separate visits from the kings.

Cadenas is the fifth consecutive Cervantes award-winning poet after Cristina Peri Rossi (2021), Francisco Brines, (2020) and Joan Margarit, (2019), and Ida Vitale (2018). The Venezuelan poet is the author number 47 of the Cervantes award list, which has fallen to 48 authors to date, as the award was split in 1979 between Jorge Luis Borges and Gerardo Diego. The following year it was established that the award cannot be divided or declared void or awarded posthumously.

In the list of winners of the Cervantes there are relevant figures of universal literature such as the Mexican Octavio Paz, the Spanish Camilo José Cela and the Spanish-Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, who were also awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

only six women

Endowed with 125,000 euros, it is the most prestigious public award for letters in Spanish. He has only recognized six women: the Spanish María Zambrano (1988) and Ana María Matute (2010), the Cuban Dulce María Loynaz (1992), the Mexican Elena Poniatowska (2013), the Uruguayan Ida Vitale (2018) and the Uruguayan- Spanish Cristina Peri Rossi (2021).

Traditionally, this ceremony is celebrated on April 23 to commemorate the day of the death of the writer Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare and Garcilaso de la Vega. Falling on a Sunday this year, delivery was moved to this Monday, April 24

Cadenas will be this Tuesday at the traditional lunch that the Kings Felipe and Letizia offer at the Royal Palace of Madrid, in addition to leaving his legacy that same day in the Caja de las Letras of the Cervantes Institute. On Friday, April 28, he will hold a talk with students from the Complutense University at the Marqués de Valdecilla Historical Library.