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Nuno Júdice wins prestigious Spanish poetry prize

The jury for this year’s edition of Spain’s Queen Sofia Ibero-American Poetry Prize meets in the Royal Palace in Madrid before announcing its decision. Portugal’s Nuno Judice was named the recipient of this year’s award for a body of poetry that is “very well-crafted, of a refined classicism,” yet at the same time deeply committed to reality, poet and jury member Jaime Siles said. EFE

Madrid, May 16 (EFE).- Portugal’s Nuno Judice was selected Thursday as the winner of this year’s edition of the Queen Sofia Ibero-American Poetry Prize.

The president of Spain’s National Heritage agency, Jose Rodriguez-Spiteri, announced the jury’s decision in a statement at the Royal Palace.

The poetry of the 64-year-old Judice is “very well-crafted, of a refined classicism,” yet at the same time deeply committed to reality, said poet Jaime Siles, a member of the jury for this prestigious prize, which carries a 42,100-euro ($55,700) cash award and recognizes a poet’s complete body of work.

Judice is “completely European” and was part of generation of poets in the 1970s who, after decades of dictatorship, led a new Portuguese vanguard on the Old Continent with their meditation on language, Siles said.

His vast body of work is not written “from an ivory tower,” but rather is very critical of current “social dysfunctions,” Siles added.

The jury member pointed in particular to Judice’s recent novel “Implosion,” which is harshly critical of the current economic situation in the southern European countries.

 

 

The Cartography of Being

[Paperback & Kindle Edition]

Nuno Júdice (Author), paulo da costa (Translator)

This bilingual anthology of fifty one poems selected from Júdice’s extensive poetic opus covers the years of 1967 to 2005 and contains the original Portuguese poems face à face with their English translations. Although his works have been translated into twelve languages in twenty countries, Júdice’s poetry is underrepresented in the English language. At present, this anthology stands as the only book of his poetry available in the English language.

The extended, contemplative tone in many of Júdice’s poems, his unhurried meditation on the subject at hand will appeal to the reader who seeks refuge from the present day diet of fast-food culture.

Judice’s poetry is a welcome counterpoint to the hurried existence of our modern lives. In this collection of bilingual poems the reader will find words that slowly melt into the page as though he or she contemplated an unhurried winter icicle melt from the eaves or the heavens, departing one form to embody another, before dropping into the reader’s mind to moisten a new consciousness and renewed understanding of being.

File Size: 256 KB Publisher: Livros Pé D’Orelha (March 7, 2012)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services Language: English/ Portuguese ASIN: B007IIC2VC

 

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