Extremadura Basilio Sánchez wins the Poetry Loewe Award | Culture
Extremadura Basilio Sanchez won the XXXI edition on Tuesday Loewe International Poetry Award for his book I have inherited a walnut on the tomb of the kings, for "its investigation and revaluation of the classical tradition, looking for new registers, sounds and meanings". This is what the jury considered when awarding the prize, worth 25,000 euros. In this edition, the prize for Young Creation has been declared void.
"It is a critical self-portrait", the jury has indicated about the winning work, something that has qualified as "unusual" and that makes it the great novelty of this book. "A work that tells of a poet in full control of his faculties, which will speak to both adult and young readers and distills mystical breath in times of hardship," the jury underlined.
Basilio Sánchez (Cáceres, 1958) has a degree in medicine from the University of Extremadura. He has published, among others, the poems Waiting for the news of the water (Pre-Texts, 2018), Crystallizations (Hiperión, 2013), The slow stations (Viewer, 2008), Between one shadow and another (Viewer, 2006) or The sky of things (Regional Editor of Extremadura 2000).
He has also won several prizes for his literary work, including the Accésit del Premio Adonáis 1983; Accésit of the Poetry Prize Jaime Gil de Biedma 1995 and 2003; Poetry International Prize Unicaja Foundation 2005 or the International Poetry Prize TIFLOS 2008.
The Loewe Foundation has been convening the annual Loewe Foundation Poetry Award since 1987, with the aim of boosting the quality of poetic creation in the Spanish language, as well as the Young Creation Award, worth 8,000 euros, to a lesser author of 30 years, which on this occasion has been deserted. The award-winning books are published within the Poetry Viewer Collection.
Chaired by Víctor García de la Concha, the jury of this award consists of some of the most important living poets in Spain and Latin America: Pieta Bonnett, Francisco Brines, José Manuel Caballero Bonald, Ben Clark, Antonio Colinas, Soledad Puértolas, Aurora Egido, Jaime Siles and Luis Antonio de Villena. In this call, 868 participants from 34 countries have been presented.
