After last night’s award ceremony, Colombia was the most awarded nation in the 55th edition of the Casa de las Américas 2014 literary contest.
After evaluating around 376 works, the competition jury, made up by 22 intellectuals from 12 countries of the region, announced its decision in the genres of short stories, theater, artistic and literary essay, Brazilian and Caribbean literature in English or Creole, plus the Award for studies on woman.
¨Cosas peores¨, by Colombian writer Margarita Garcia, won the prize in Story category, a “consistent”, “unitary” manuscript, with “solid narrative architecture”, which gives priority to “insinuation” over “explicit” according to the jury’s minutes.
Her compatriot Carlos Orlando Fino was awarded by ¨ José Lezama Lima: estética e historiografía del arte en su obra crítica, ¨in the category of artistic-literary theme. The experts considered it a “convincing and illuminating” text and full of “articulated movements” due to Cuban writer José Lezama Lima’s aesthetic and artistic ideas.
The third award-winning author from that South American nation was Piedad Bonnett who won the José Lezama Lima Poetry Honorary Award for her work ¨ Explicaciones no pedidas. ¨
The Casa de las Americas Literary Award is organized every year by the cultural institution that bears that same name, based in Havana.
Consequently OnCuba provides the list of the contest winning works:
STORY
Winner: Cosas peores, by Margarita García (Colombia).
THEATER
Winner: Blanco con sangre negra, by Alejandro Román (Mexico).
Mention: Sistema, by Abel González (Cuba).
ARTISTIC-LITERARY ESSAY
Winner: José Lezama Lima: estética e historiografía del arte en su obra crítica, by Carlos Orlando Fino (Colombia).
Mentions:
Julián del Casal: modernidad y periodismo, by María Antonia Borroto (Cuba).
Hombres en el desierto. Otredad en América Latina. (Auto) biografías, cartas y diarios. Diálogo con la narrativa actual, by Marina Porcelli (Argentina).
BRAZILEAN LITERATURE
Winner: Marighella: o guerrilheiro que incendiou o mundo, by Mário Magalhães
CARIBBEAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH OR CREOLE
Winner: Fear of a Black Nation-Race, Sex, and Security in Sixties Montreal, by David Austin (Jamaica).
Mentions: The Night of the Rambler, by Montague Kobbe (Anguila) and Light Falling on Bamboo, by Lawrence Scott (Trinity and Tobago).
AWARD FOR STUDIES ON WOMAN
Winner: La loca inconfirmable. Apropiaciones feministas de Manuela Sáenz (1944-1963), by Mariana Libertad Suárez (Venezuela).
Mentions: El desorden de la democracia. Partidos políticos de mujeres en Chile, by Alejandra Castillo (Chile).
Escritoras latinoamericanas: aportes al discurso de la transgresión, by Guisela López (Guatemala).
HONORARY AWARDS:
JOSÉ LEZAMA LIMA POETRY AWARD
Explicaciones no pedidas, by Piedad Bonnett (Colombia).
JOSÉ MARÍA ARGUEDAS NARRATIVE AWARD
Arrecife, by Juan Villoro (Mexico).
EZEQUIEL MARTÍNEZ ESTRADA ESSAY AWARD
Che Guevara y el debate económico en Cuba, by Luiz Bernardo Pericás (Brazil).
