At the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, the Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli (Managua, 1948) He gave his acceptance speech yesterday Carlos Fuentes International Prize for Literary Creativity in Spanish 2025Which was announced in mid-October. The jury, consisting of the Mexican historian Rodrigo Martinez Barax, the Mexican writers Ana Clavell and Natalia Toledo Paz, the Argentine writer Claudia Piñero, and the Spanish poet Luis García Montero, chose the book’s author. The haunted woman For his ability to renew Latin American poetry and the strength of his dialogue between society, history, and literature. The ceremony was held on the anniversary of the birth of award-winning writer Cervantes in 1987.
The award, worth $125,000, a diploma and a sculpture by artist Vicente Rojo, comes after the 32nd Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry, which Bailey won in 2023. She is the second representative of Nicaraguan literature after that Sergio Ramirezand the fourth woman to win the Carlos Fuentes Racewhich was created in 2012 and has been awarded annually since 2018. The narrator and poet dedicated the award to “Nicaragua and its people, to its political prisoners and exiles” and to the singer Norma Helena Gadea, who died on Monday at the age of 69 in Managua.
“At the moment, I have not planned a trip to Buenos Aires, but there is always unexpected magic – says Billy in an interview with LA NACION -. The Carlos Fuentes Award has been a very pleasant incentive and recognition for my work and I hope to continue to be, like Carlos Fuentes, a writer always committed to the human aspiration to overcome the abyss and move toward equality and justice. With the ready word like Quixote.
Yesterday, after letters by journalist Silvia Lemos, Fuentes’ widow, who referred to the correspondence between the works of the author Terra Nostra The laureate from Toledo Paz, whom he praised on behalf of the jury for his “perseverance and resistance”; From Rector Leonardo Lomeli Vanegas, Rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who said that Pelli “brilliantly united aesthetics, intimacy and contemplation,” and from the Mexican Minister of Culture, Claudia Curiel, the author spoke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZxKzydwB1Q
She said that she was almost unable to reach the awards ceremony due to a technical malfunction in the plane she was traveling on with her husband. “It’s been an incredible journey,” he summed up. She then admitted that she was moved by the award and remembered Fuentes, whom she described as “the great wizard of words,” with affection: “His presence was an incentive because We admired in his works the constant reminder that imagination has an umbilical cord with reality and the political situation. “On our word.” According to Billy, the Mexican author would have been horrified by the “authoritarian drift” of the Ortega government that, among other things, stripped Billy and Sergio Ramírez of their Nicaraguan citizenship and confiscated their property.
“Sergio and I, through no other mistake than to use our words, We have been victims of abuse of power and manipulation of justice in our country -He denounced-. We had to see how the memory of that revolution to which we had given ourselves and which had unleashed so much enthusiasm in the world had been misappropriated. “Exile and deprivation are difficult things at this stage of life.”
He stressed that Mexico was his first “safe haven” and “the cradle of a wonderful solidarity movement that enjoyed the support of great Mexicans like Carlos Pellicer, Carlos Fuentes, Carlos Monsivais, Elena Poniatowska and many others.”
“Today, the legacy and symbolic dimension of the Sandinista Revolution constitute the screen behind which Nicaragua’s current rulers hide. -to caution-. There are still those who support them, despite the widely documented crimes and human rights violations that prove that my country has once again become a dictatorship equal to or worse than Somoza’s. Although Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum did not support the Ortigas family, she did not criticize them publicly either.
“It is clear that times have changed, with a world increasingly moving toward authoritarianism, racial discrimination and the primacy of the interests of corporations and millions,” said Bailey. “Great technology has been put at the service of consumption, paradoxically bringing us closer and benefiting us, but also distracting and distancing us from a sense of community.” He implied that it was the responsibility of intellectuals to “protect hope and faith in humanity.”
Before concluding, he admitted that he owed a lot “to Carlos Fuentes and his humanistic and mobilizing concept of literature,” especially with the novel. Death of Artemio CruzThe first thing the author read. “I understood how, with words, one could give life to characters that depict history and people and allow us to understand them. Inside it – traces -. I also understood the mystery of evil. In him I found my desire for identity, as well as the confidence to take risks and take charge of the imagination, and he allowed me to believe in that famous debate between committed literature or not; He showed it: how to be committed and be calm at the same time.
“Literature can be a form of memory and also a way to mend people’s souls Billy concluded. Thanks to literature and words, it has bequeathed to us humans a language to express beauty and appeal to emotions that reveal the abysses and heights of the human condition, an intimate language, but one that makes us get to know ourselves and immerse ourselves in the flow of stories and experiences that have built us as a human race. I thank life for providing me with a feast of intense experiences, both bitter and sweet.
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