The Letras Cubanas Editorial and the Cuban Book Institute (ICL) announced on Tuesday the winners of the Alejo Carpentier and Nicolas Guillen 2022, which recognize the essay, poetic and narrative work of Cuban authors.
With the laurel that bears the name of carpentier Rogelio Riverón was distinguished on this occasion with the story “Forty glasses of vodka”; Francisco López Sacha for his novel I am going to write to eternity; and Joaquín Borges Triana with the essay “Help, I am not subversive”, according to a report from the Prensa Latina (PL) agency.
? In the morning of today #December 20th from the Dulce María Loynaz Cultural Center, the Alejo Carpentier and Nicolás Guillén 2021 National Awards were announced.https://t.co/Nl8MpXmok0 pic.twitter.com/MiQVLRJko7
— Cuban Book Institute (@cubano_libro) December 20, 2022
The president of the novel jury, Alberto Marrero Fernández, explained that the work of López Sacha stood out among the 18 proposals analyzed for its effective narrative style, which “mixes testimony and fiction, literary and historical essay, the costumbrista vignette, the chronicle journalistic and philosophical and existential reflection”.
Likewise, he pointed out the “obvious autobiographical charge and clean prose, with an adequate tone, which shines for its richness, harmony, fluidity, audacity, grace and seduction, oscillating between the popular and the cultured naturally, not exempt from poetry as an intrinsic quality of the text and humor”.
For his part, López Sacha recalled the process of conception of the book, a project that he resumed in 2020 and which is “about my family, myself and my hometown”.
The author stressed that “it was born without pretensions to being a novel, but it developed” in order to “reconstruct the history of the city [Manzanillo] from its origin in 1784 to today”.
Popular characters appear in the text, emblematic sites such as La Demajagua and “there are episodes dedicated to my life in Havana, in Santiago de Cuba; In short, somehow I am integrating my personal universes into the general history of the city”, said the prominent writer.
The winners of the Nicolás Guillén Poetry Prize were also announced during the event, who will receive the award in the next edition of the Havana International Book Fair, scheduled for February 2023.
The jury, made up of Jesús David Curbelo, Alex Pausides and Leymen Pérez, evaluated more than 30 works and decided to award the prize to the book Babel’s busby Carlos Esquivel, and mentions to the notebook Drillby Víctor Fowler and the collection of poems the verb and the numberby Marrero.
In addition, awards were given to the winners of the 2021 edition of both contests, in which the writers Sergio Cevedo (EShrodinger’s Aryan God Cat), Jose Luis Garcia (The charioteer of the winged chariot) and Zaida Capote (Tribulations of Spain in America: 3 episodes of History and Fiction).
Likewise, he received recognition from the president of the jury, Nancy Morejón, the writer Carlos Augusto Alfonso for the work Lepanto. The book I wrote for Milosz.
