Madrid, 24 April (EFE)” at the ceremony where the highest prize in Spanish literature was presented.
“We stand before a determined, consistent honesty that knows exactly the words that will protect people from authoritarianism, lack of freedoms and human rights violations. His figure calls and brings together a country scattered around the world,” said Iceta on behalf of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who was not present at the event.
At the Auditorium of the University of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), Iceta stated that he is the first Venezuelan to receive the 2022 Cervantes Prize, this distinction that “filled him with happiness” for the “long” journey above all else. That he “undertook” to be in the city of Complutense.
During the performance, the head of Culture reviewed the biography of the Venezuelan (Barquisimeto, 1930), stressing that in his poetry “word and gaze shape a wide-ranging aesthetic expression”, something he appreciated above all else. The books “Outdoor” and “Memorial”, both published in 1977.
He also highlighted how the dictatorship of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez “sent” Rafael Cadenas into exile to the island of Trinidad, which was then a British colony, as a result of his participation in the university student protests in 1954. He added, “Four years of exile, which he took advantage of to learn English and read English and North American poetry. He returned to his homeland in 1958 after the overthrow of the regime and the establishment of democracy in Venezuela.”
Shortly after returning from exile, Cadenas began teaching for more than 30 years, conveying to his students in the classroom “the reflections, anxieties, and doubts that reciting the poets he taught aroused in him.”
“The Minister recalled that his awareness of human frailty meant that a large part of his presentations were formulated as questions for which he did not always have answers”.
Cadenas, author of “The nasty character and a few words,” taught what Iceta calls a teaching that his students remember as “the teacher of life, its mystery, and poetry.”
“Poetry is an experience, not a literary genre,” the poet repeated to them, and the accuracy of that statement was one of the pillars of his teaching.”
After reading a poem published in 1996 in his book “Gestiones”, the Minister said that Cadenas gave “conciseness to a language that, in his view, demands to be addressed, questioned, renewed, defended”.
Iceta also recalled that Cadenas was the translator of poets such as Cavafis, Herbert, Graves or Whitman, the latter “a remarkable voice for him”.