King Felipe and Queen Letizia have presided over the annual ceremony to award the Miguel de Cervantes literary award. This year’s winner is Cristina Peri Rossi.
Their Majesties arrived at Alcalá de Henares University around 11am on Friday, 22nd April, and were welcomed by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the Chief of the Air Force Command Juan Ángel Treceño.
Following a troop review, the King and Queen made their way along the reception line where they were greeted by many state and local authorities, as well as many personalities of the literary circle of the country. The last salute was to Ms Cecilia Roth, who was representing the award winner.
King Felipe was then invited to give a speech, during which he highlighted the joy of finally being able to hold the ceremony in person and without masks – Spain’s mask mandate was lifted on Wednesday, the same day that Princess Leonor held her solo engagement.
His Majesty then went on to praise the role that writers and literature have in securing the memory of a nation and a culture, as well as praising Ms Peri Rossi for “having shown herself rebellious, unsubmissive and transgressive, in short, different; thank you for the literary and vital journeys she has opened […]”.
Ms Peri Rossi was unable to attend the ceremony due to health reasons, so her friend, actress Cecilia Roth, collected the prize for her, and also read a speech prepared by the award winner for the occasion.
Before the prize was handed out, there was a reading of three reasons why the jury awarded Ms Peri Rossi the prize. Part of the reasons given stated that the jury “recognised in her the trajectory of one of the big literary vocations of our time, and the mark of a writer capable of shaping her talent in a plurality of genres”.
The ceremony was concluded with the University choir singing “Gaudeamus Igitur”, an ancient melody that has been adopted as the international university hymn.
Cristina Peri Rossi was born in Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital, where she still resides today. She published her first book in 1963, and has since then written 45 more, with the last one, novel “La insumisa” [“The unsubmitted”], being published in 2020.
The Miguel de Cervantes Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards for Spanish works. Candidates can be nominated by Spanish Language Academies, previous winners, cultural and literary institutions and jury members. The only requirement is for the book to be written entirely, or for the most part, in castellano.
