Outstanding figures of the Cuban culture deserved yesterday important recognitions for their relevant activities. The National Literature Award 2023, awarded by the Cuban Book Institute (ICL), was granted to writer and journalist María Elena Llana Castro.
The National Social and Humanistic Sciences Award and the National Publishing Award, both also from the ICL, went to anthropologist Jesús Guanche Pérez and publisher and writer Enrique Pérez Díaz, respectively.
Meanwhile, the National Cultural Heritage Award 2023, granted by the National Council of Cultural Heritage, went to ethnologist Miguel Barnet Lanza.
A jury headed by poet Nancy Morejon recognized in the author of Casas del Vedado and Tras la quinta puerta, among other elements, "the pioneering originality of her writing, which has stood out for the cultivation of more than peculiar themes".
Llana, in conversation with Granma, said she felt satisfied because many people have believed in this award, she explained.
Led by Miguel Barnet, the jury that voted for Guanche distinguished that "his studies of the ethnic components of the Cuban nation are remarkable and show the depth of his thought", while his incorporation of "novel and little studied aspects of the Cuban popular culture, both in the Hispanic and African origins" was highlighted to his credit.
Enrique Perez Diaz was recognized in the minutes -signed by a group of editors headed by Virgilio Lopez Lemus- for being an excellent editor, and "a very remarkable manager and leader of the Cuban publishing world", who "has also worked in the management sector of publishing houses and in the activity of book and reading promotion".
"I accept the award for his loyalty and for always wanting people to read the best things," he told this newspaper in a brief telephone interview.
The proclamation of Miguel Barnet as National Cultural Heritage Award 2023 distinguished the dedication of a life devoted to the rescue, research, preservation and promotion of cardinal aspects in the formation of Cuban identity.
When the president of the National Council of Cultural Heritage, Sonia Virgen Perez Mojena, gave the news to the author of Biography of a Maroon, those who founded Cuban thought, from Jose Agustin Caballero and Felix Varela to Jose Marti and Fernando Ortiz, came to the memory of the award winner.
He evoked Argeliers León, one of his mentors, and his ears resounded the toques, prayers and chants of the practitioners of popular religions and rumberos that he heard as a child in a plot of land in El Vedado. From the Fernando Ortiz Foundation, founded and chaired by him, he continues to contribute to make the nation's heritage more alive every day.
