Venezuelan poet Rafael Cadenas wins the 2022 Cervantes Prize

The Venezuelan poet Rafael Cadenas, a communist and anti-madurista, was awarded the 2022 Cervantes Prize, the highest recognition of letters in Spanish and endowed with 125,000 euros (144,800 dollars), an “aid” to survive in a Venezuela in crisis, declared the 92 year old laureate.

At a press conference, the Spanish Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, reported the decision of the jury for this award, which recognizes the figure of a writer who, with his work as a whole, has contributed to enriching the Hispanic literary legacy.

📹🗣️ The Minister of Culture and Sport, @miquelicetaabout the jury’s decision: “This recognizes the transcendence of a creator who has made the #poetry a reason for its own existence and has taken it to heights of excellence in our language” pic.twitter.com/ci7joBRwxG

– Ministry of Culture and Sports (@culturagob) November 10, 2022

According to the minutes of the jury, they awarded the Cervantes to Cadenas (Barquisimeto, Venezuela, 1930) for his “vast and extensive literary work”, as well as for the “significance” of this “creator” who has made poetry “a reason for its very existence” and has taken it “to heights of excellence”.

“His work is one of the most important and demonstrates the transforming power of the word when language is taken to the limit of its creative possibilities, and distills the dazzling essence of words, in a dual territory of sleep and wakefulness, wave expression of existence and the universe, a dimension both mystical and earthly”, valued the jury.

Cadenas, writer, poet, essayist and teacher, has united poetry and thought throughout his career and stands out for his ability to express desolation, calm and beauty. His most famous poem, “Defeat”, made him a symbol for many young people of the sixties and became popular in Spain and Latin America. However, he would point out decades later that it is a poem that does not represent him today.

The winner of the Cervantes Prize also has to his credit the Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry, the National Prize for Literature of Venezuela or the International Prize for Poetry Federico García Lorca-Ciudad de Granada (Spain).

The Venezuelan joins the list of this award that was awarded last year to the poet Cristina Peri Rossi, and that in its previous editions Francisco Brines and Joan Margarit were awarded.

Other literary figures awarded this prize have been the Mexican Octavio Paz, the Spaniard Camilo José Cela or the Hispanic-Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, who were also distinguished with the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The Venezuelan writer Rafael Cadenas told EFE this Thursday that he feels honored and grateful after learning of the ruling that grants him the Cervantes Prize 2022, the highest recognition of letters in Spanish, news he received by telephone at his home in Caracas. And that took him by surprise.

“I was reviewing a notebook where I have notes that I want to publish and at that moment I received a call from a Spanish friend who gave me the news from which, of course, I still have not recovered,” said the 92-year-old poet, who tries to celebrate the award with his relatives while taking numerous calls.

The winner of the Reina Sofía Award for Ibero-American Poetry and the Federico García Lorca-Ciudad de Granada International Poetry Award did not expect the joy, since, according to himself, he had already been a candidate on several occasions for this award, which the poet won last year Uruguayan Cristina Peri Rossi.

“No, I did not expect it (…) so I am still under the effect of that news,” he remarked.

And, still with the euphoria of the scoop, he adds: “I’m happy, but it also scares me because it’s a huge responsibility in relation, not only to the language, but to Spain, Venezuela and the situation we find ourselves in right now” .

The also essayist and professor reiterated his gratitude to Spain for this distinction, endowed with 125,000 euros (144,800 dollars).

“I owe a lot to Spain because the awards have allowed me to survive, since the economic situation we have is very limited. It is a huge gratitude that I have. Apart from the honor, there is also that help that allows us to live,” he added.

At a press conference, the Spanish Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, reported the decision of the jury for this award, which recognizes the figure of a writer who, with his work as a whole, has contributed to enriching Hispanic literary legacy.

According to the minutes of the jury, they awarded the Cervantes to Cadenas (Barquisimeto, Venezuela, 1930) for his “vast and extensive literary work”, as well as for the “significance” of this “creator” who has made poetry “a reason for its very existence” and has taken it “to heights of excellence”.

Although with the passage of time he disagrees with his most emblematic poem, “Defeat”, the Cervantes Prize 2022, the Venezuelan Rafael Cadenas, demonstrated in those verses what has marked his career, his ability to express desolation, calm and beauty. to make the word a transforming tool.

This was highlighted by the jury of this edition of the Cervantes Prize 2022, which valued the “vast and extensive literary work” of this poet who is considered one of the most influential authors of the poetry of the 60s and 70s in Venezuela.

An author who published his first collection of poems, “Initial Songs”, in 1946 and who from a very young age combined literature with politics, since he was a member of the Communist Party of Venezuela, was imprisoned and lived in exile during the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jimenez, in the 1950s.

Born in Barquisimeto (state of Lara, Venezuela) on April 8, 1930, Cadenas -also the Queen Sofía Award for Ibero-American Poetry- acknowledged upon receiving this award that he “disagreed” with his emblematic poem, “Defeat” (1963), because “everything has turned out differently from how it appeared”, since he realized that what was captured there when he was 32 years old was different.

“More than a rebel, I try to be aware because awareness is above thought. Awareness is what sees thought,” said the author in 2018.

For Cadenas, truthfulness is important in his works, which are characterized by a philosophical thought that invites reflection, whether he recites it himself, with his slow voice, or is read by any of the followers of this author, considered one of the the most important in Latin America.

Committed to his country, Cadenas recognized in 2015, when he received the Federico García Lorca International Poetry Prize in Spain, that he lived in “fear” in his country – where he currently resides – and that the government of Nicolás Maduro “does have similarities to the regime fascist” because it is “absolutely undemocratic”.

For this reason, this poet, described as a “humble person” by those who know him, seeks in his works to “deal very forcefully with some political issues” in Venezuela.

With a direct and clean verb, as if they were darts, in Cadenas’s poetry they also highlight “Una isla”, “Outdoors”, “The exile notebooks”, “Memorial”, “Falsas maneuvers”, “Gestiones” and “Lover and Failure”, the latter considered by himself as an “involuntary response” to “Defeat”.

A member of the literary generation of ’58, as an essayist Cadenas is the author of “Literature and life” (1972), “Reality and literature” (1979), “Notes on San Juan de la Cruz y la mistica” (1977, 1995), “Reflections on the modern city” (1983), “On language” (1984) or “On the teaching of literature in Secondary Education” (1998), among others.

This same year, Cadenas was honored by the Cervantes Institute under the slogan “Let’s celebrate Cadenas”, for his 92nd birthday. The poet thanked the award from his home in Caracas, where this retired professor from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), the country’s main university, lives, where he taught Spanish and Latin American poetry classes.

Doctor “honoris causa” by the Latin American University ULA or by the Central University of Venezuela, Cadenas thus joins the list of winners of the Cervantes Prize, an award that once again rewards poetry, since last year it went to the Uruguayan Christina Rossi