Congratulations to Enrique Pérez Díaz, winner of the National Publishing Prize 2023
A commission chaired by Virgilio López Lemus and made up of Basilia Papastamatiu, Mercy Ruiz, Lourdes González and Luis Yusef Reyes, all important figures in Cuban literature and the Cuban intelligentsia: poets, essayists, critics and publishers, met on 26th December at the Dulce María Loynaz Cultural Centre to award the National Publishing Prize to Enrique Pérez Díaz, also a journalist, writer and researcher.
Born on 11 April 1958, the Cuban is the author of an extraordinary body of work for children and young people, as evidenced by his titles: Minicuentos de hadas, El último deseo, ¿Se jubilan las hadas?, Las golondrinas son como el mar, Recado de amor en la botella, Escuelita de los horrores, Adiós infancia, Las hadas cuentan, Siempre azul, La vieja foto, Alguien viene de la niebla and Los ángeles de tiza, to name but a few of his books published by various Cuban and foreign publishers.
A journalist by profession, Enrique Pérez Díaz began his work as a social worker at the Capitán San Luis publishing house. He later moved to other national publishing houses. He was awarded a scholarship to the International Youth Library in Germany, where his research project on the history of the Hans Christian Andersen Awards was accepted and successfully turned into a book. He has also published several volumes of interviews with children’s authors in Cuba, the latest of which is dedicated to female authors and entitled Nunca fuimos Cenicientas.
The author’s main interest is literature for young people, which is why he was a regular contributor for many years to the Cubaliteraria website of the Cuban Book Institute, where his knowledge shone through in the criticism and analysis section of Barquito de Papel, which he founded in the middle of the first decade of this century.
He was also the director of Gente Nueva for seven years, where he created and developed the innovative Veintiuno Collection, which brings together the works – mainly dedicated to youth – of storytellers, first foreign and then Cuban, who have won prizes and other international appointments, such as the Italian Carlo Frabetti, the Canadian Deborah Ellis, the Greek Alki Zei and the Argentine María Teresa Andruetto, among many others.
It is in this collection that his editorial work becomes particularly relevant and decisive, as can be seen in the publications that make up the collection. These include Loca por Roger, a Scandinavian story; the literary series on Lavinia, an entertaining character by the Italian Bianca Pitzorno, who questions the adult world from the perspective of childhood; the ominous writings of the Catalan Jordi Sierra i Fabra on pressing issues that directly affect young people, such as drug and alcohol addiction, the abuse of the music and sports industry for youth icons, and emigration from Africa due to poverty and violence, among many other texts that exude quality and have managed to position themselves as a hallmark of narrative published in Cuba for age groups that are interested in these contemporary issues. The editorial work of Enrique Pérez Díaz shines through on every page, as well as in the prologues he has written for other books in other collections from the same publishing house, such as «A quien lleva en la frente algo de eternidad», a heartfelt tribute to Dulce María Loynaz, which appears in Amor es resucitar, a selection of poems by the Miguel de Cervantes Prize winner. It is included in the Pétalo de Gente Nueva collection, edited by Amanda Calaña Carbonell.
Enrique Pérez Díaz is also the only Cuban and Latin American to have been a member of the jury for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2014, and has recently been a member of the jury for other international competitions, such as the SM Foundation’s Steamboat for the Caribbean.
Radio Cubana wishes to congratulate him on his well-deserved Award.
Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez
