Mexico City, Nov 8 (EFE).- Mexican poet Eduardo Lizalde won the Carlos Fuentes International Prize for Literary Creation in the Spanish Language, Mexico’s Culture Secretariat announced Tuesday.
“Eduardo Lizalde is Mexico’s most important living poet and one of the most outstanding in the Spanish language,” whose book “El Tigre en la Casa” is appreciated as one of the “liveliest and most influential books by successive generations,” the jury said in making its decision.
“His complete poetic works are collected under the title ‘Nueva Memoria del Tigre,” which includes his courageous, self-critical ‘Autobiography of a Failure,’ which recounts his youthful attempts at poetry,” the jury said.
Lizalde told EFE that he is “greatly honored” by the prize, above all because this is an award created as a tribute to Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012), whom he recalls as “an important person” as well as a close friend and colleague from the time he was young.
The prize, sponsored by the Culture Secretariat and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, among other institutions, will be awarded by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at an official ceremony later this year.
The poet will receive a diploma, a sculpture by Spanish artist Vicente Rojo and an amount in Mexican pesos equivalent to $248,000, the Culture Secretariat said in a statement.
Born in Mexico City in 1929, Lizalde studied philosophy at UNAM and music at the National Fine Arts Institute, or INBA.
Notable among his works are “La Mala Hora” (1956), “Odesa y Cananea” (1958), “Cada Cosa es Babel” (1966), “El Tigre en la Casa” (1970), “La Zorra Enferma” (1974), “Caza Mayor” (1979), “Memoria del Tigre” (1983) and “Tabernarios y Eroticos” (1988).
Among the awards he has won are the Xavier Villarrutia Prize in 1970, the National Prize for Linguistics and Literature in 1988, the Ramon Lopez Velarde Ibero-American Prize in 2002, and the Garcia Lorca Prize in 2013.
He has been a member of the Mexican Academy of the Language since 2006 and is currently the director of the Jose Vasconcelos Library of Mexico.
This prize, awarded every other year, honors writers with long careers whose works have all been published in Spanish and have contributed to the enrichment of the literary heritage of humanity.
The jury of this third edition was made up of the Nicaraguan Sergio Ramirez, Spain’s Juan Luis Cebrian and Mexicans Jaime Labastida, Roger Bartra and Vicente Quirarte.
The 2010 Nobel laureate for literature, the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, won the first edition of the Carlos Fuentes Prize in 2012, followed by Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramirez in 2014.