Writer Elena Poniatowska has been awarded the Carlos Fuentes International Prize

The 91-year-old author is known for her extensive career and contributions to Spanish-language letter writing

Writer and journalist Elena Poniatowska91 years old, was awarded the International Prize Carlos Fuentes to “Literary Creativity in the Spanish Language” In 2023, she becomes the fourth woman to reach this milestone.

This award is given by the Mexican Ministry of Culture and National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) for writers who, through their works, enrich the literary heritage of mankind.

In this sense, Poniatowska has been recognized for her extensive career and contributions to letters in Spanish, through journalism, history, interview, and fiction.

The international competition jury consisting of Concepción, Javier Garciadiego, Luis García Montero, Rene Acosta and Margo Glantz.

Also participating were Rodrigo Borja Torres, Director General of Libraries, as representative of the Ministry of Culture of the Mexican Government, and Julia Santépez, Coordinator of Carlos Fuentes Extraordinary Chair of Latin American Literature, as representative of UNAM and Secretary of the Jury. They unanimously decided to award the Carlos Fuentes Prize to the author of “La noche de Tlatelolco”.

With this distinction, the author of Polish origin and who arrived in Mexico in 1942 also received a diploma, a sculptural work designed by visual artist Vicente Rojo, as well as an amount of Mexican pesos equivalent to $125,000 (about 114,612 euros). .

The writer was recorded as the fourth woman to receive this award in her history, after Mexican writer Margo Glantz (2022), Chilean Diamela Elite (2020) and Argentine Luisa Valenzuela (2019).

This award was created in memory of the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012) and has gone from being a biannual recognition to being handed out every year since 2019, with an agreement between the Mexican Ministry of Culture, UNAM and journalist Silvia Lemus, the widow of the sources.

This past April, Poniatowska was also awarded Mexico’s highest citizen’s honor, the Belisario Domínguez Medal, awarded by the Senate of the Mexican Congress.

As a writer, Poniatowska has worked in almost all literary genres: novels, short stories, poetry, essays, and chronicles, and has also written children’s stories and adaptations for the stage.

In 1955 he published his first novel “Lilos Caicos” and in 1971 he won the Xavier Filorotea Literary Prize for his novel “La Noche de Tlatelolco”, although he rejected it.

His journalistic work includes records of the 1968 student movement (collected in La noche de Tlatelolco), the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City (collected in “Nothing, Nobody. Sounds of the Tremor”), or the conflict in Chiapas in 1994.