The Puerto Rican intellectual and professor Luce López-Baralt is the recipient of the Ernesto Cardenal Award in its 2023 edition, which will be awarded to her on May 12.
This is the third edition of the Ernesto Cardenal Award. The award was instituted by the Ernesto Cardenal International Foundation, a non-profit entity, whose purpose is to “preserve, disseminate, organize and classify the literary, philosophical, theological and artistic work” of the Nicaraguan poet, who died in March 2020. The poet Cardenal, also known as “the Trappist poet”, was recognized for his humanistic attitudes and great attachment to his people. Gifts of a great social being who supported culture (arts, cinema and literature), human rights and “the empowerment of communities through education and the strengthening of schools and democratic values” were recognized.
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The award in its 2023 edition “will be presented to the Puerto Rican intellectual Luce López-Baralt on May 12 at Casa de América, in Madrid, during a solemn ceremony,” according to a statement released by the Foundation.
In the two previous editions, the award was granted to relevant figures such as the Father Angel Garcia Rodriguez, President of the NGO Messengers of Peace, and the actor Pedro Almodóvar
The jury and the board of trustees of the award decided that in 2023 it would go to Luce López-Baralt, PhD in Romance Literatures from Harvard University.
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López-Baralt is also a PhD from the Complutense University of Madrid, Distinguished Professor and Emeritus Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at the University of Puerto Rico, Vice Director of the Puerto Rican Academy of the Spanish Language and Corresponding Academician of the Royal Spanish Academy and the Mexican and Dominican Language Academies.
The 2023 edition of the Ernesto Cardenal Award is part of the preparations for the commemoration of the poet’s centenary that will take place in 2025.