by the El Reportero’s news services
Escritor mexicano Ernesto de la Peña (photo courte By of El Universal)
Mexican writer Ernesto de la Peña was presented Tuesday with the 26th Menendez Pelayo International Prize in recognition for “his concern about the transmission of knowledge and access to culture by the new generations.”
A total of 27 nominees in the field of literary or scientific creativity were vying this year for the award, which comes with 34,000 euros in cash ($42,285) and is presented annually by Mexico City-based Colegio de Mexico and Spain’s Universidad Internacional Menedez Pelayo, according to a communique released by the latter educational institution.
The panel of judges emphasized the side of De la Peña as a “great essayist, relevant storyteller, poet and philologist,” adding that he is “a great expert in classical and modern languages of all types.”
De la Peña, who was born in 1927 in Mexico City, heads the Telmex Foundation’s Centro de Estudios de Ciencias y Humanidades. Among the titles of his published works are “Las estratagemas de Dios,” “Las maquinas espirituales,” “El indeseable caso de Borelli” and “Mineralogia para intrusos.”
Past winners of the award include authors Mario Benedetti and Mario Vargas Llosa.
Julio Iglesias, 68, says he’ll rest when he’s “on the other side”
Julio Iglesias, despite his 43 years in music, said that he is still motivated to go onstage, that he would not sing if it did not move him and that he will rest “in 30 years when I’m on the other side.”
His reason for singing is none other than “feelings,” he said, adding that “if I didn’t sing what would I do, I don’t know how to do anything else,” his remarks coming in an interview with Efe in the southern resort city of Marbella before beginning a concert tour in Spain.
For an artist, he added, the public is “a commander and boss in our lives,” who decides “if it’s OK or not OK.”
He said that he wants “to continue creating and producing” because the jobsof “thousands of people” depend on him.
Regarding the music in Spain, he said he likes “the authentic, that which is born in the roots, flamenco, copla, that mixture of the electric with the ancestral, with the acoustic; to see Chick Corea with Paco de Lucia” and he lamented the fact that the economic crisis is affecting music and “the commitment the record company has to the artist.”
He also said he was concerned about “the marginal situation that Spain has within the European community,” although he said he did not want to give a sense of catastrophe and emphasized that “much money has been spent, much energy has been spent and now that money and that energy must be recovered.”
