As announced this Tuesday, the Cuban narrator and journalist María Elena Llana was awarded the 2023 National Literature Prize, according to the minutes of the jury meeting at the Dulce María Loynaz Cultural Center in Havana.
She is also a radio and television scriptwriter, professor of journalism and radio techniques, She is considered one of the most important contemporary Cuban short story writers and her second book Casas del Vedado received the National Critics Award in 1984.
Born in the city of Cienfuegos, on January 17, 1936, her work has been collected in anthologies inside and outside Cuba, and translated into several languages.
From 1959 to 1992 he worked in newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and in the Prensa Latina Information Agencymedia where she served as a desk editor, reporter, theater, radio, television, plastic and literature critic, as well as a specialist in international political issues.
In 1959 he began working at the newspaper Revolution; but he quickly became part of the newspaper The afternoon until starting in Latin Press in the second half of the 60s.
She was a journalism professor in Angola in 1987, and a correspondent for the Latin Press Agency in Beijing, China, between 1989 and 1992, in addition to holding different positions in the agency, as well as in some of its publications such as magazines Prisma y International Cuba.
During his career he obtained important awards from the Union of Journalists of Cuba and the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television.
Throughout the 50s and 60s of the last century he wrote the stories that would make up “La reja”, his first notebook of stories, and which appeared in 1965, published by Ediciones Revolución.
This volume includes the text “Nosotras”, one of his most anthologized texts and which is studied at the American universities of Santa Barbara and San Diego.
After 20 years he released his second book of short stories, “Casas del Vedado”, which was published in 1983, which won the Literary Criticism Award and is recognized by scholars of Cuban literature as one of the emblematic texts of that period.
In 1998, Castle of Cards appeared, a book in which the fantastic and the non-realistic predominate, as well as the poeticization of the need for human beings to overcome their own limits and go beyond their logical-conventional constraints, according to specialists.
In 2011 she published “Dreams, scares and surprises”, her first book for children, which was followed in 2014 with the novel “From Mars to the park”.
The tribunal that awarded the high award was made up of the narrators Nancy Morejón (president), Marilyn Bobes, Olga Marta Pérez, Jesus Lozada and Rafael Acosta.
According to the usual mechanisms, the high recognition granted by the Cuban Book Institute will be given to María Elena Llana during the Havana International Book Fair, the next edition of which will take place from February 15 to 25, 2024.
2023 Edition Award for Enrique Pérez Díaz
The 2023 National Publishing Prize in Cuba was awarded today to the writer and editor Enrique Pérez Díaz, according to a jury chaired by the poet, essayist, art critic and researcher Virgilio López Lemus.
The court, which sat at the Dulce María Loynaz Cultural Center in Havana, was also integrated by the 2020 National Publishing Award Mercy Ruíz; the publisher and literary critic Basilia Papastamatiu; the poet and narrator Lourdes González; and the poet and publisher Luis Yusef.
According to his considerations, Pérez Díaz is an excellent editor, in addition to being a very notable manager and a leader in the Cuban publishing world.
“He has carried out his work as a writer with equal effectiveness, one of the most outstanding in the panorama of literature for children and young people in Cuba,” the minutes stressed.
Born in this capital, on April 11, 1958, he graduated in Journalism from the University of Havana and is also a poet, narrator, journalist, critic and literary researcher.
According to the Cuban portal Ecured, he practiced journalism for more than 30 years on radio, television, newspapers, agencies and cultural magazines. From 1993 to 2008 he was president of the Children’s Literature Section of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba and member of the Cuban Committee of the International Organization for Young People’s Books (IBBY).
Co-author of the chapter on Cuban children’s literature for “The new history of Cuban Literature from 1959 to 1989”, Pérez Díaz wrote another on the subject in Latin America and the Caribbean for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Children Literature, from England.
In 1998, his research project “The Nobel Prize in Literature for Children” was selected to be developed through a grant from the Internationale Jugendbibliothek (International Youth Library) in Munich, Germany.
He has also been associate editor for Cuba of Bookbird, IBBY, collaborator of the Latin American Magazine of Literature for children and young peopleof the magazine Vagón Literario (from Alfaguara) and editor and journalistic editor of the newsletter Meñique Informa, of the Cuban Committee of the IBBY.
As a lecturer and as a reporter he has participated in scientific events and taught courses in Spain, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Mexico, Germany, Colombia, Canada, Italy, Switzerland.
In 2014 he was appointed international jury for the Hans Christian Andersen Prize, considered the Nobel Prize for children’s literature.
Juan Jesús Guanche Pérez, National Prize for Social and Humanistic Sciences 2023
The 2023 National Prize for Social and Humanistic Sciences was awarded today to the Cuban academic and anthropologist Juan Jesús Guanche Pérez, with a recognized career in teaching and several published works.
The work of the also Doctor in Historical Sciences, professor and researcher and graduate in Art History, was recognized by a jury made up of Miguel Barnet (President), Alberto Prieto, Marlene Vázquez, René González and Omar Valiño.
In his considerations, highlighted the investigative work within the social and cultural anthropology of Guanche; his notable studies of the ethnic components of the Cuban nation, which demonstrate the depth of his thought.
He also highlights having incorporated novel and little-studied aspects of Cuban popular culture, both in Hispanic and African origins, and stressed that his vast work constitutes a model to follow in anthropological studies.
The jury’s report distinguishes his creative participation in the work of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, the Academy of History and the Cuban Society Friend of the Country.
Born on September 1, 1950 in Havana, Guanche was a member of the Board of Directors of the Fernando Ortiz Foundation, as well as Coordinator of the Social and Humanistic Sciences Section of the Cuban Academy of Sciences (2000-2016).
According to the Cuban portal Ecured, he currently works as an academic at the Hebei University of International Studies, Shijiazhuang, China.
Among his merits it appears that he was a recipient of the Distinction for National Culture (1995); the Tropical Gypsy Distinction (Havana, 1999); Mirror of Patience Distinction (Camagüey, 2006); City Rosette (Cienfuegos, 2008); Illustrious son of the City of Havana (2008); Outstanding Educator, 20th century in Cuba (2009).
In addition, he obtained the awards from the Cuban Academy of Sciences (1998, 2016, 2017), from the Scientific-Technical Criticism of the Cuban Book Institute (2009 and 2015); the National Cultural Research (2013); the Mackandal (2014); among others.
He also holds the Carlos J. Finlay Order, of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba (2018); the YanZhao Friendship Prize, Hebei, China (2020); and as an active member of the New York Academy of Sciences, United States, since 1995.
The writer and essayist has published various monographs: Ethnocultural processes of CubaHavana, 1983; Caidije (study of a Haitian-Cuban community), Santiago de Cuba, 1988; Canarian significance in the Hispanic population of CubaSanta Cruz de Tenerife, 1992; Ethnic components of the Cuban nationHavana, 1996.
Others were Spain in the lifeblood of CubaHavana, 1999; Popular prayers of Cuba: invocations and iconography, 2001; Transculturation and African, 2002.
He participated in more than a hundred scientific events on sociocultural anthropology and cultural history, both in Cuba and abroad.
