Global IssuesCULTURE-IBEROAMERICA: Women MisPrized
'The judges are usually men, and they tend to prefer men's writing,' Mexican journalist and novelist Elena Poniatowska, a perennial candidate for the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, said with a note of resignation in her voice.
Poniatowska's comment to IPS referred mainly, but not only, to the history of this prize, awarded annually since 1976 by Spain's Ministry of Culture to honour the lifetime achievement of writers in the Spanish language. Cervantes Prize winners have been predominantly male.
Out of 35 awards so far, only two have gone to women: María Zambrano (1904-1991) of Spain and Dulce Loynaz (1902-1997) of Cuba.
This year was no exception, as the most important literature prize in the Spanish-speaking world, named in honour of Spanish literary genius Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra (1547-1616), was awarded to Mexican novelist and poet José Pacheco. The comments by Poniatowska and other observers in no way detract from the quality of Pacheco's writing career.
Poniatowska has sat on the judges panel for the Miguel de Cervantes Prize in the past. This year the judges were Jaime Labastida, of the Mexican Academy of Language, Luis García Montero, of the Conference of Vice-Chancellors of Spanish Universities, María Agueda Méndez, of the Union of Latin American Universities, and Soledad Puértolas, of the Cervantes Institute.
Also judging were Almudena Grandes, of the Spanish Culture Ministry, Pedro García Cuartango, of the Federation of Journalists' Associations of Spain, Ana Villarreal, of the Latin American Federation of Journalists, David Gíes, of the International Association of Hispanists, and Juan Gelman, the 2007 prizewinner. Juan Marsé, awarded the 2008 prize, was unable to take part.
Among the 35 authors awarded the Cervantes Prize, 17 have been Latin American and 18 Spanish, nearly always alternating geographically year by year according to an unwritten rule. Even the 1979 prize, shared between Argentine Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) and Spanish poet Gerardo Diego (1896-1987), reflects this balance.
However, the lengthy roll of honour, begun in 1976 with Spanish poet Jorge Guillén (1893-1984), includes only two women, Zambrano and Loynaz.
Pacheco, born in 1939, is the fourth Mexican writer to receive the Cervantes Prize, after 1990 Nobel Literature laureate and poet Octavio Paz (1914-1998), and novelists Carlos Fuentes and Sergio Pitol.
'I think the Cervantes Prize is going over the top on something very like misogyny. The lack of awards to women is certainly not because of a shortage of nominees,' wrote culture journalist César Coca in his blog in El Correo Digital, a Spanish online newspaper.
'It is to be hoped that one year a woman will win it,' said Poniatowska, the author of 'La noche de Tlatelolco' (The Night of Tlatelolco) and 'La piel del cielo' (The Skin of the Sky), which won Spain's prestigious Alfaguara Novel Prize in 2001. The media reported that she was again among the frontrunners for this year's Cervantes Prize.
The Mexican author lamented that fellow-writers like Elena Garro and Rosario Castellanos, of Mexico, and Spain's Carmen Gaite, all now deceased, never won the prize.
Qualified women candidates are not in short supply, as Iberoamerican literature boasts creative writers like Isabel Allende of Chile, Laura Restrepo of Colombia, Ana Matute of Spain and Poniatowska herself.
'There is no lack of names. Why does the Cervantes Prize keep ignoring women?' asks Coca on his blog.
The majority of the leading Spanish language literary distinctions this year went to men. One of the few exceptions was the Planeta Novel Prize 2009, awarded to Ángeles Caso of Spain.
Another exception to the rule was the Nobel Prize for Literature, which Rumanian-born German novelist Herta Müller is due to receive in Stockholm in a few days' time.
'In Müller's case, two countries are being honoured. And don't forget Elfriede Jelinek of Austria, and Doris Lessing of the U.K., who did not attend their award ceremonies,' Poniatowska said.
Jelinek won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004, and Lessing in 2007.
Pacheco, who also received the Queen Sofía Prize for Iberoamerican Poetry in November, will collect the Cervantes Prize and 190,000 dollars at the prestigious Spanish University of Alcalá de Henares on Apr. 23, 2010, the anniversary of the death of the author of 'Don Quixote of La Mancha'.
Created in 1992 to recognise the works of an Iberoamerican poet, the Queen Sofía Prize has been awarded to Gonzalo Rojas and Nicanor Parra of Chile, Mario Benedetti of Uruguay who died earlier this year, Gelman of Argentina and Spanish writers José Hierro and Antonio Gamoneda, among others.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service