The jury of the XXXI Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry, convened since 1992 by the University of Salamanca and National Heritage, has unanimously chosen Olvido García Valdés as deserving of the distinction this year for being “one of the great voices of the contemporary poetry”, whose texts acquire “from the connotation and the suggestion a deep transcendence”. The poet will receive the award at a ceremony to be held at the Royal Palace in Madrid and, as is traditional, it will be presented by Queen Sofía.
The rector of Usal, Ricardo Rivero, and the president of National Heritage, Ana de la Cueva, today announced the jury’s decision, which highlights the poet’s “entirely personal syntax, with which she seeks dispossession, nudity and essentialism.
De la Cueva, who has communicated the ruling to the winner minutes before announcing it to the media, describes the winner as “her own voice, differentiated and recognizable.” Likewise, she added that she is a “poet of emotions and ontological, intimate and metaphysical reflection.”
For his part, Ricardo Rivero highlighted the moment in which this award was given. “Now we need poetry, we need grace, utopia, piety and empathy,” he suggested. According to Rivero, these are times to “avoid any discourse, any text of disregard, hatred and lack of appreciation towards people, something that the poetry of Olvido García Valdés contributes.”
In addition to the heads of Usal and National Heritage, the jury was made up of Santiago Muñoz Machado, director of the Royal Spanish Academy; Ana Luisa Amaral, winner of the XXX Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry; Luis García Montero, director of the Cervantes Institute; Ana Santos Aramburo, director of the National Library; Raquel Lanseros, poet; Jorge Luis Volpi, writer; Selena Millares, from the Autonomous University of Madrid; Araceli Iravedra, director of the Ángel González chair at the University of Oviedo; Manuel Ambrosio Sánchez and María Isabel Toro, from the Department of Spanish and Ibero-American Literature at the University of Salamanca. For her part, Mar González Soliño, also a professor at Usal, has served as secretary.
