Luis García Montero / Elena Poniatowska

Since I entered on the age of 93 and have been writing since I used to be 20, now at 92 they do me the respect of choosing me as a jury for various journalism and literature contests: the Fantastic Arts contest; the Rosario Castellanos, in Chiapas; the Carlos Fuentes, in Mexico Metropolis; that of the UNAM, that of the Poli, that of my very own basis and that of universities and cultural sections of varied newspapers, each in Mexico Metropolis and the remainder of the nation. Requests of the identical nature additionally come from Spain.

These days, profitable a prize nearly systematically turns you right into a jury for the subsequent competitors and, due to this fact, the manuscripts arrive by mail in numerous wrappings and their presence turns into a day by day warning, a nocturnal anguish, as a result of awarding a prize is ALWAYS an infinite and unavoidable duty.

At evening, earlier than going to sleep, I normally suppose that I’m going to commit some injustice and I discover that through the years the extent of the literary submissions of all of the contestants has been rising and now it is rather excessive, and it’s that top too. the duty to make a judgment.

Oh my God, the contestants have gotten increasingly more quite a few, and their stage of creation and tradition is changing into greater and better! All that is related as a result of on June 20, UNAM awarded the Carlos Fuentes Worldwide Prize for literary creation within the Spanish Language to the Spanish poet Luis García Montero, whom I like and love and met in Mexico a number of years in the past with Almudena Grandes, Paloma and Paco Ignacio Taibo.

The winner of the Carlos Fuentes Prize, Luis García Montero, additionally the Spanish Nationwide Poetry Prize for Separate rooms which, based on critics, is without doubt one of the nice works of up to date poetry in Spanish, for this identical e book he received the Loewe Prize in 1993. In Mexico, our Chamber of Deputies named him Excelsa Determine of the Letters of Humanity, that is proper that each one our legislators demonstrated that, as legal professionals, they’re additionally good readers and critics. Carlos Fuentes himself would have appreciated García Montero to obtain the award named after him, because the winner is without doubt one of the nice names of up to date poetry in Spanish.

Identical to Federico García Lorca, García Montero comes from Granada and, like him, traveled the roads of Spain along with his first e book of poems. He has printed greater than 20 collections of poems and greater than 17 essays, and our UNAM acknowledges his work as distinctive on the planet literary heritage.

Certainly one of my nice tribulations is being a jury. I expertise it as an arduous job, a punishment and an ethical dedication, not solely literary, and I torment myself, as within the case of narrators with an extended profession, like mine, but in addition with younger women and men who cross their fingers in anticipation. in your first work to be printed, be it a novel, brief story or poetry. I keep in mind being a decide in a literature contest referred to as by the Nationwide Institute of Fantastic Arts with judges who have been already established writers corresponding to Salvador Elizondo and Juan García Ponce (earlier than his horrible sickness), and on another event with Sergio Pitol, a soul of God, who got here particularly from the College of Xalapa and lived throughout these days in a resort on Álvaro Obregón Avenue.

For me, personallyAs is commonly specified, giving a public judgment of every work was ALWAYS torture, a job that gave me chills and a dedication that stored me awake. I incessantly argued earlier than my fellow jurors: Wait, wait, please, here’s a excellent element, a wonderful paragraph, an correct picture, an outline that asks nothing of Marcel Proust, a prose that Juan Rulfo would have cherished.. Oh, Elena, our determination has been made, do not give it some thought, you mentioned sure! However I returned to the identical factor and defended the textual content earlier than others as if I had found Cervantes. Salvador Elizondo obtained indignant: Elena, cease it, we’re dying of starvationas a result of all Fantastic Arts choices have been made within the morning.

I keep in mind that Juan Antonio Ascencio, scrupulous to loss of life, a superb author himself, a workshop chief and a splendid connoisseur of literature, helped me learn manuscripts that he himself knew easy methods to qualify with loving care and with much less tormented consideration than mine, since I (for customized and private nature) I by no means need to remove something or anybody, which is an ineffective and really gradual means of judging a piece that participates together with many others in a literary contest.

In life, I’ve at all times recognized which writers communicate to my coronary heart and which don’t. Clearly, I want authors who cope with subjects that I’m conversant in and it’s tough for me to grasp texts through which every thing revolves across the yo and the autobiography for extra attractive Because it seems, though from a really younger age in highschool I learn Proust and was delighted by Jean Santeuil, however when it was my flip In Search of Misplaced Timein my first language, French, I needed to return a number of occasions to earlier pages as a result of the Proustian extra made me lose the thread.

I’ve a fantastic inclination for the literature written by girls, since I used to be born a lady and from a younger age, and already in Mexico, I grew to become keen about Sor Juana, Rosario Castellanos, Elena Garro, with out forgetting the passion that studying them triggered in me. The empty e book, which Josefina Vicens herself learn aloud in a number of rounds of studying at Guadalupe Amor’s home on Duero Avenue, within the Cuauhtémoc neighborhood. As was my customized, I requested questions and requested for explanations. Doing so continues to be a part of a craft that started in 1953 by way of As? When? Why and for what?, that are regulation in journalism. Releasing information at all times requires justification. In diarism, area can’t be wasted. I keep in mind that as soon as, in a standard criticism of all of the reporters within the newspaper The day, my colleagues took out of the window, from the second flooring, a roll of paper from the bathroom that fell to the sidewalk on Insurgentes Norte Avenue to make me perceive that I wrote an excessive amount of and that what I evidenced in so many pages may very well be mentioned with 4 phrases and never the 4 thousand double-spaced strains that I delivered with a lot unconsciousness. Every of us, the reporters, went by way of the identical guillotine after which we went to the canteen to toast the that means of financial system in writing and I ate the complete snack whereas they raffled off some chickens. What is sweet and temporary is twice pretty much as good, mentioned Don Edmundo Valadés.

I do not know if I discovered the lesson as a result of my subject was at all times the interview or the chronicle, however I did not need to sacrifice a single phrase given by the interviewee or cease mentioning his gestures, and I stored even a sneeze in writing as a result of a sneeze from Siqueiros or one in every of Octavio Paz weren’t and usually are not simply something. To my infinite dialogues, I nonetheless added a second half and typically even a 3rd. The pinnacle of data put up with me and the top of editorial, excellent individuals and storyteller, too; Edmundo Valadés, for his half, suggested me to place an indication above my Olivetti machine: Economic system is model.

For me it’s a pleasure to recollect Luis García Montero with a white guayabera in Mexico Metropolis and to suppose that he was the loving companion of Almudena Grandes. Rosa Montero – a fantastic novelist that all of us love in Mexico and have awarded –, Beatriz Espejo – widow of an distinctive Mexican critic, Emmanuel Carballo, and extraordinary brief story author –, Élmer Mendoza, who brings all of the northern states in her pants pockets , and Fernando Fernández, poet and editor, who smoothes any dialogue along with his sensitivity and intelligence, have been happy to designate the Carlos Fuentes Worldwide Prize to the professor and director, at the moment, of the Cervantes Institute, for his nice contribution to the heritage of the humanity.