The Spanish writer Luis Mateo Díez (León, 81 years old) has won the Cervantes Prize. The jury highlighted his “unique prose, which constantly surprises with new challenges.” He also emphasized “his specialist knowledge and his command of language as well as his expressionistic humor with which he portrays human complexity.” The author of The Kingdom of Celama (a fictional region in which almost all of his works are set) was a teenager who dreamed of killing Franco, but who soon felt that his life should follow the peaceful path that had given him hundreds of years. Friends who helped him fulfill his wish of “not being alone.” He has won the Critics’ Prize twice and the National Narrative Award twice.
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Created in 1975, the Miguel de Cervantes Prize for Literature in the Spanish Language annually awards official recognition to the literary collection of a work by an author in Spanish, presenting writers of that language, regardless of their nationality. Maximum recognition in the Spanish language, the prize is worth 125,000 euros. In its history, six women have received it and the last five winners have been female poets.
This year’s jury consisted of the two winners of previous editions, Cristina Peri Rossi and Rafael Cadenas, as well as the director of the Royal Spanish Academy, Santiago Muñoz Machado. At the suggestion of the Cuban Language Academy, the jury also included Luisa Campuzano; from the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE), Antonio Lorente; from the Union of Universities of Latin America (UDUAL), Laurette Godinas; from the Cervantes Institute, Javier Rioyo; from the Ministry of Culture and Sports, Raquel Lanseros; from the Federation of Journalists Associations of Spain (FAPE), María Jesús Chao; from the Latin American Federation of Journalists (FELAP), Juan Carlos Camaño, and from the International Association of Hispanists, Madeline Sutherland-Meier.
A few years ago, the usual rotation of the award between Latin America and Spain was interrupted, as in the 2020 and 2019 editions the Spanish poets Francisco Brines and Joan Margarit won the prize. While in 2022, the Venezuelan poet Cadenas won the prize and a year before, in 2021, the Uruguayan author Peri Rossi. The prize will be awarded on April 23, the anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes, during a ceremony in the auditorium of the University of Alcalá de Henares presided over by the Kings.
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