The past Wednesday, October 9th I had the opportunity to assist
to Eduardo Lalo’s tribute and conversatory, celebrating with his work colleges
of the humanities department and workmates his most recent and very important
award “Rómulo Galegos 2013”. This is the international award for novels and the
competition was executed in Venezuela where he was selected unanimously by the
judges who were evaluating 200 different novels coming from 17 different
countries. The novel with witch Eduardo won this award is called Simone.
The activity was celebrated at the university in the first floor of the
AJBR building. I could just stay for a very short time because I had class
before the activity and also after but for the time that I stayed, I quickly had
a good impression about this professor because of the way that one of his
workmates was referred to him and his discussions toward Eduardo’s books. Even
that he was referred to Eduardo’s books in a funny or deceptive way sometimes
like with his novel called Los pies deSan Juan, the irony of his words were well understood by the public and
just made Eduardo’s books look more interesting than ever. Also, it was perceptible every time that
Eduardo talked, the knowledge and awareness he has about the actual conflicts
in Puerto Rico such as political, economical and most of all, social and
cultural.
It is a pride to have a writer like him (who is considered puertorrican
even that he was born in Cuba) wining this important competition and by the
short meeting I had with him on Wednesday, I can say that he deserves it.
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| University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus |
Yes, it is certainly impressive when you realize that Lalo won the prize and that it brings a lot of attention to Puerto Rico as an island of creative and intellectual people. I think that since he was born in Cuba, I have even more questions about his identity.
ReplyDeleteNice job and thanks for participating - it was a General Studies activity - and the English Department (Dr. Janine Santiago) had a major role in coordinating it to make it happen.
Interesting, I also went to this event and I was surprise because of Lalo being Cuban but been recognize here at Puerto Rico. As the professor said, this intrigues me about his identity since he is almost considered as a puertorrican.
ReplyDeleteWow! I found your anecdote very interesting. For me, it is amazing how Puerto Rican writer won such important award, from among so many writers, but more amazing how our University recognizes him as one of us, despite he was born in Cuba.
ReplyDeleteAwesome! How nice that you got the opportunity to go to a recognition event and specially since it was honoring a Cuban writer. Maybe I motivate myself to read Simone any time soon.
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