Eduardo Galeano and Ernesto Cardenal will receive the “Pedro Henríquez Ureña” Award at the FILRD 2014

Eduardo Galeano and Ernesto Cardenal will receive the “Pedro Henríquez Ureña” Award at the FILRD 2014 
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 04/23/2014

The award ceremony will take place at 7:00 pm, in the Carlos Piantini Hall of the Eduardo Brito National Theater.

During the opening ceremony of the 17th International Book Fair of Santo Domingo 2014 (FILRD), writers Eduardo Galeano and Ernesto Cardenal will receive the “Pedro Henríquez Ureña International Award”, which is presented by the Ministry of Culture and the Presidency of the Republic.

The award, which is being presented for the second time and includes a cash prize of US$25,000, recognizes the literary productivity, criticism and the creation of thought in the lifetime work of a writer. The first recipient, in 2013, was Puerto Rican writer and humanist Luis Rafael Sánchez.

The Pedro Henríquez Ureña Award, which was established by Presidential Decree No. 93-13, provides that it shall be organized annually by the Ministry of Culture and that it shall be presented to two Latin American writers in any literary genres.

The award’s ceremony will take place at 7:00 pm in the Carlos Piantini Hall of the Eduardo Brito National Theater. The President of the Republic, Danilo Medina Sánchez, will preside over the ceremony together with the Minister of Culture, José Antonio Rodríguez.

In addition, several activities related to the award ceremony are being planned, including a Series of Seminars that will start on Friday, April 25th, at 5:00 pm in the Aída Bonnelly de Díaz Hall of the National Theater. Ramón Victoriano, Professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga; and Dr. Liliana Weinberg, Professor at the Autonomous University of Mexico will speak on the life of late poet José E. Pacheco.

At 7:00 pm, Miguel Mena, editor of the Cielonaranja publishing house and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Berlin; Rafael Mondragón, Professor at the Autonomous University of Mexico; Dr. Berenice Villagómez, Professor at the University of Toronto; poet and philologist from the Complutense University, José Enrique García; and, poet and playwright Luisa Vicioso (Chiqui), will discuss the work of Pedro Henríquez Ureña.

On Saturday, April 25th, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm, visitors at the FILRD14 may participate in the symposium on the work of Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, under the theme “The right to speak: Eduardo Galeano and the Latin America of the 21st century”. Invited speakers include poet Tony Raful; Representative Minou Tavárez Mirabal; Journalist Ramón Colombo; and, Carlos Jorge Guerrero, Professor at the University of Ottawa.

The symposium on Ernesto Cardenal has been organized for Sunday, April 27th, where the issue to be discussed is: “La religión poética de Ernesto Cardenal” (The poetic religion of Ernesto Cardenal) by Professors Néstor Rodríguez (University of Toronto), Eladio La Torre Lagares (University of Puerto Rico), José Luis Vega (University of Puerto Rico) and the Dean of General Studies at the APEC, Dr. Andres L. Mateo.

The Pedro Henríquez Ureña International Award Series of Seminars will conclude on Monday, April 28th, with a poetry recital by Ernesto Cardenal. This event will take place in the Aída Bonnelly de Díaz Hall of the Eduardo Brito National Theater.

Pedro Henríquez Ureña, born in the Dominican Republic in 1884, is one of the most important Latin American humanists. His life journey spanned disciplines such as linguistic research, philology, teaching, art criticism, literary criticism, and set precedents for the study of the Spanish language spoken in the Americas. He has taught several generations of Hispanic writers and thinkers, including Jorge Luis Borges and Enrique Anderson Imbert. He died in Argentina in 1946.