Holguin writer wins Julio Cortázar Short Story Award

Emerio Medina, an outstanding writer from the municipality of Mayari, in Holguín province, won the 21st edition of the Julio Cortázar Ibero-American Short Story Award for his story “El hombre que vino a leer” (The Man Who Came to Read).

According to Dazra Novak, writer and member of the jury of the contest, Medina’s text offers a very well plotted story about literary creation, reading and the blurred borders of the fictional narrative text.

Novak added that the work also shows an effective use of language and as a secret homage to Cortázar, the story, without losing its authenticity, uses certain devices of the great Argentine fabulist, such as uncertainty.

In a message the winner sent to those present at the award ceremony at Casa de las Americas, he said that the text deals with the life of a writer from an intimate point of view, as well as his links with the real world.

It is a story that contrasts renunciation and possibility, the temptations of a distant future and the chains of a tangible and overwhelming reality.

Citations were also awarded on Wednesday to the Cuban stories “Los apostadores”, by Yunier Riquenes; “La noche bella no deja dormir”, by Ronel Gonzalez (from Holguin province too), and “La paradoja de Gutenberg”, by Ernesto Perez.
Also recognized in this section were “Los muertos son invisibles”, by Colombian Odymar Varela, and “No más flores, capitán”, by Peruvian Rolando Alexander Rivera De los Ríos.

The first mention went to Alberto Guerra, from Cuba, for his work “Picassos en el aire”, by Alberto Guerra Naranjo.

Emmanuel Tornés, writer, essayist and member of the contest jury, said that on this occasion more than a thousand stories were submitted from authors from all over Latin America, including some who live outside the region.

The reading of the texts allowed us to have a vision of the short story in Latin America, where young people stand out as the creators of these works that rely on an event such as the one awarded today, said Tornés.

He invited that next year, when the 110th anniversary of Cortázar’s birth and the 40th anniversary of his death will be commemorated, the stories in the competition will surpass the quality of those of the present edition.

The Ibero-American Julio Cortázar Short Story Award was created at the initiative of the prestigious Lithuanian intellectual Ugné Karvelis and its honorary president is Cuban writer and ethnologist Miguel Barnet.

Several institutions such as the Cuban Book Institute, Casa de las Americas, the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, and the Ministry of Culture of the Argentine Republic sponsor the event.

With information from ACN / Translated by Radio Angulo