Guadalajara, Mexico – Mexican writer Carlos Monsivais was named here Monday as the winner of the 2006 edition of the Juan Rulfo Prize for Latin American and Caribbean Literature.
The acclaimed critic and essayist was the unanimous choice of the jury, panel spokeswoman Cecilia Garcia-Huidobro said from the western Mexican city of Guadalajara.
This year’s award is tinged with controversy because the heirs of novelist Juan Rulfo (1918-1986) – whose “Pedro Paramo” has been described by Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez as “the most beautiful story ever written in the Spanish language” – have demanded that organizers stop using his name in association with the literary prize.
After learning of his selection, Monsivais said he was confident the prize organization and the Rulfo family will reach an “amicable solution” allowing the late author’s name to remain on the award.
The prize is to be presented during the Nov. 25 inauguration of the prestigious International Book Fair in Guadalajara.
On the eve of last year’s award ceremony, two of Rulfo’s children asked the prize committee to remove their father’s name, saying they were unhappy with the selection process.
Monsivais, who thanked the jury for honoring him, said he finds the acrimony surrounding the prize especially “disagreeable” because of his own relationship with the Rulfo family.
Born in 1938 in Mexico City, Monsivais has become one of his country’s most-respected intellectuals and an indispensable guide to the realities of Mexican society.
A contributor since his youth to important newspapers and journals such as El Universal, Futuro, Excelsior and Gallo Ilustrado, Monsivais also helped found the publications Proceso, Unomasuno and La Jornada.
The former researcher with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History has lectured at universities throughout the Americas.
The prize jury hailed Monsivais for having breathed new life into the “forms of the news story, literary essay and contemporary thought in Mexico and Latin America.”
“He had forged a distinct language to represent the richness of popular culture, the spectacle of urban modernization, the codes of power and mentalities,” the jury said.
