Madrid (EFE).- The Venezuelan poet and essayist Rafael Cadenas receives the 2022 Cervantes Prize, the highest award for letters in Spanish, in a ceremony presided over by the king and queen in the auditorium of the University of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid).
The presentation of the Cervantes Prize, the central act of Cervantes Week, is traditionally held every April 23 on the occasion of Book Day but this year, as it coincides with a Sunday, it was moved to today.
After receiving the award from the king, Rafael Cadenas, 93, will deliver a speech whose content he did not want to reveal at a ceremony attended by personalities from the world of culture and politics.
The Cervantes Prize was awarded to this Venezuelan writer born in Barquisimeto in 1930 for his “vast and extensive literary work”, as well as for the transcendence of a creator who has made poetry “a reason for his own existence” and has brought “to heights of excellence.”
This was highlighted by the jury that awarded him the award last November, endowed with 125,000 euros and awarded every year by the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
Cadenas’s work, as the jury emphasized, is one of the most important and “demonstrates the transformative power of the word when language is pushed to the limit of its creative possibilities.”
Rafael Cadenas, symbol in the 70s
Cadenas, writer, poet, essayist and teacher, has united poetry and thought throughout his career with a work that expresses desolation, calm and beauty. His most famous poem, “Defeat”, made him a symbol for many young people in the sixties and became popular in Spain and Latin America.
In addition to the Cervantes Prize that he will receive tomorrow, Cadenas also has to his credit the Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry, the National Prize for Literature of Venezuela or the International Federico García Lorca-City of Granada Poetry Prize.
He is the first Venezuelan author awarded with this prize, which last year was awarded to the poet Cristina Peri Rossi, and which in its previous editions recognized Francisco Brines and Joan Margarit.
Since his arrival in Spain, the writer has held a meeting with the media and has begun the continuous reading of Don Quixote that takes place every year on the occasion of World Book Day, among other events.
The day after receiving the award in Alcalá de Henares, Cadenas will deposit a legacy in the Caja de las Letras at the headquarters of the Instituto Cervantes in Madrid, an old bank vault that has kept objects donated by writers and writers in its safe deposit boxes since 2007. other cultural personalities.