The second call of the pinternational poetry prize ‘City of Estepona’ has received a total of 1,445 works, thus confirming the national and international repercussion of the contest, and whose decision will be announced on May 5, as reported on Thursday by the mayor, José María García Urbano.
The alderman has highlighted that the originals come from all the Spanish provinces and candidates have come from practically all Latin America, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Cuba, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica or El Salvador. In addition, the contest has collected works by poets from the United States, Canada, Germany, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Austria, Russia or China.
The award is endowed with a economic amount of 6,000 euros and the publication of the winning work in the prestigious publishing house Pre-Textos. The jury is chaired by the Valencian poet Jaime Siles (1951), one of the most awarded poets in Spain and a prominent member of the ‘newest’ generation. The ruling will be made public on May 5, coinciding with the institutional celebration of Poetry Day in Estepona.
García Urbano has stated that this broad participation confirms the relevance of this municipal initiative and has reiterated the Estepona City Council’s support for culture, literature and artists. “Promoting culture, in all its spheres, is contributing to more humane, more sustainable cities with a better quality of life; attributes that are strongly identified with Estepona and with the city model that we have developed in this decade”, she pointed out.
For his part, the essayist Simón Partal -who coordinates the contest together with the Consistory-, has highlighted that “the success of this edition’s call and the enormous quality of many of the works presented confirms that this award is already a benchmark for creators in Spanishand this achievement is not limited to literature, but will have an impact on our lives and will accompany and drive our city in its growth”.
He also stated that the important receipt of originals from Latin American countries “produces a special satisfaction and corrects that unfair distance that has existed for some years in our literature and in poetry written in our language.”
Regarding the publisher where the winning work will be published, Simón Partal recalled that Pre-Textos has achieved one of the best catalogs of poetry, narrative and essay in Spanish during its more than four decades of experience, so the publication of the winning collection of poems will be especially interesting for its author.