C U L T U R E

Havana. January, 13 2004

BY MIREYA CASTAÑEDA -Granma International staff writer-

THERE is nobody better than poet and novelist Pablo Armando Fernández, winner of the National Literature Prize, to describe the events accompanying the Casa de las Américas Prize: a significant and moving moment, a celebration of a love for culture, which is life.

From January 19 through 29, Havana is hosting the juries that will select from close to 500 works those deserving of the prizes for poetry, short story, Brazilian literature, Caribbean literature in French or Creole and the extraordinary essay award for Women’s Studies.

It is always an enormous responsibility to fulfill the central mandate of this literary competition - awarding the best works - but surely even more so on the 45th anniversary of the Casa Prize, without a doubt one of the continent’s most prestigious and far-reaching competitions.

As Casa de las Américas vice president Marcia Leycesa says, it is precisely that directive of awarding the best book, without other considerations, that has maintained the prestige and authority of the prizes, award, now in their 45th year without a break. “It is not the trifling $3,000 prize that gives the competition that convening power; rather, it is the honor of participating and receiving an award.”

Leyseca recalled that when the Casa Prize was organized in 1959, Alejo Carpentier’s valuable help contributed to forming the first jury, which included Miguel Otero Silva, Miguel Angel Asturias and the then not-so-well-known Carlos Fuentes.

The essential reason for the competition, Leyseca added, “was the need to make known our countries’ literature, first to ourselves and later to the world.”

In 45 years, the competition has matured, has been developed and renewed; for example, the genre of personal essay was introduced, while other languages such as Portuguese, English, French, Creole, plus indigenous languages like Quechua, Aymará and Maya have been added as the years have gone by.

The remarks on the occasion of the constitution of the juries (on January 19) will be in the care of Haitian intellectual Susy Castor, thus including the 2004 Casa Prize in the celebrations for the Bicentennial of Haitian Independence; in addition, the Casa de las Américas magazine is dedicating its No. 233 to this subject, and a conference is scheduled on The Caribbean Today.

This year, the poetry jury, which will judge 214 books, is made up of poets Diana Bellesi (Argentina), Arturo Corcuera (Peru), Luis Rocha (Nicaragua), Jaime Augusto Shelley (Mexico) and Roberto Méndez (Cuba).

One hundred and seven short story volumes are vying for the prize to be awarded by the jury composed of Luis Aceituno (Guatemala), José Alcántara (Dominican Republic), Fernando Ampuero (Peru), Laura Restrepo (Colombia) and Jaime Sarusky (Cuba).

For this occasion, the Brazilian literature category has been convened for essays and testimony writing, and Casa has received 81 works, which will be read by Joao Almino (2003 Casa Prize winner for the novel Las cinco estaciones del amor (The Five Stations of Love), Walter Galvani (2001 Casa award, for Nau Capitania. Pedro Alvares Cabral, como e con quem comecamo), and Beatriz Jaguaribe.

For Caribbean literature in French or Creole, 15 books are to be judged by Ernest Pepin (poet and storyteller from Guadeloupe who received the Casa Prize in 1991 and 2000 for his books Whirlpool of Words and The Red Screen), Maximilien Laroche (Haití) and Rafael Hernández (Cuba).

In 1994, Casa convoked for the first time an Extraordinary Women’s Award, and now has organized a second one for the essay genre, for which it has received 23 books, from which one will be chosen by the jury made up of Lea Fletcher (Argentina-United States), Luz Elena Gutiérrez (México), Kemy Oyarzún (Chile), Mary Louise Pratts (Canadá), and María del Carmen Barcia (Cuba), winner of the 2003 Casa Prize for her work La otra familia (parientes, redes y descendencia de los esclavos en Cuba) [The Other Family: relatives, networks and descendants of slaves in Cuba].

Jorge Fornet, director of the Center for Literary Research, mentioned the Honorary Prizes that are granted by Casa through selection, not competition, and which bear the names of prestigious writers from the region: José Lezama Lima, for poetry; José María Arguedas, for fiction; and Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, for essay, which this year, in that same order, have been awarded to Pesar todo (Weighing Everything), by Juan Gelman; La chica del trombón (The Trombone Girl), by Antonio Skármeta, and Los nuevos centros de la esfera (The New Centers of the Globe), by William Ospina.

These three books will be launched to the public together with the winners of the 2003 Casa Prize: La hermana (The Sister), a novel by Argentine Paola Cristina Yannielli; Angel perdido en la Ciudad Hostil (Angel Lost in the Hostile City), a play by Venezuelan Rodolfo Santana; La isla de Morgan (Morgan’s Island) a personal essay, by Colombian José Alejandro Castaño; La otra familia (The Other Family), an essay by Cuban María del Carmen Barcia, and Las cinco estaciones de amor (The Five Stations of Love), a novel by Brazilian Joao Almino.

The competition also provides opportunities for meetings with the jury members, who will offer a poetry reading and the lectures Voces, letras e historia de mujeres (Voices, writings and the history of women); Como se cuenta un cuento (How to Tell a Story) and Pensamiento y literatura en el Brasil de hoy (Ideas and Literature in Brazil Today).

Working with other branches of the arts, Casa has organized two concerts, Canciones de este mar, by trova singer Lázaro García, to be held in the Terry Theater in Cienfuegos, and Concierto por la paz with works by Cuban composers, to be held in the Sala Caturla of the Amadeo Roldán theater, and a great photographic installation in Casa’s Latin American Gallery: Las cartas, by José Manuel Fors.

January 29 is the date for announcing the winners of the 2004 Casa Prize, an award which, to come back to the words of poet Pablo Armando Fernández, “walks a path of light.”