Portuguese poet Nuno Júdice, 64, was awarded the 2013 Queen Sofia Ibero-American Poetry Prize, annouced Thursday Jose Rodriguez-Spiter, the president of Spain’s National Heritage agency.
Considered the most prestigious literary prize in the Ibero-American world, the 42,100-euro ($55,700) cash award recognizes Judice’s complete body of work.
Spanish poet Jaime Siles, a member of the jury, said in a statement that the jury’s decidion recognized Júdice’s “very well-crafted, of a refined classicism […] deeply committed to reality.”
Recent recipients of the prize, include Nicaragua’s Ernesto Cardena, Cuban poet Fina Garcia Marruz,Uruguay’s Cristina Peri Rossi and Portugal’s Antonio Ramos Rosa and Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, as well as Spaniards Maria Victoria Atencia, Julia Uceda and Carlos Edmundo de Or.
Nuno Júdice was born in 1949, in Mexilhoeira Grande, in the Algarve southern region of Portugal. A prolific writer, he has published works including 32 poetry books, 16 volumes of fiction, 11 collections of essays, and five produced plays. His work has been translated into twelve different languages.
He holds a degree in Romance Philology, from the University of Lisbon, and a PhD in Medieval Literature from the New University of Lisbon, where he is currently a professor.
He directed the magazine Tabacaria of the Casa Fernando Pessoa, in Lisbon, in the nineties. Since 2009, he has been the editor of the literary magazine Colóquio-Letras, at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
An essayist, literary critic, and fiction writer, Júdice has garnered numerous literary prizes. His debut poetry collection, The Meaning of Poem, appeared in in 1972. Just 13 years later, he won two prestigious national awards: the Pen Club Prize, and the D. Dinis da Casa de Mateus Prize, and the Portuguese Association of Writers Award. His book, Meditação sobre Ruinas [Meditation on Ruins], was also a finalist for the European literary prize, Aristeion.
From 1997 to 2004, Júdice served as cultural attaché for Portugal in Paris. He has also served as director of the Instituto Camões in Paris during the same period of time.
Recently, Nuno Júdice was interviewed for the Portuguese American Journal, by Millicent Accardi. In the interview Júdice speaks of five decades of writing, his literary references and preferences, the state of the Portuguese letters at home and abroad, of his creative practice and his work in progress.
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