The Cuban Evelio Traba wins the XL International Poetry Prize Juan Alcaide

September 5, 2021

Cuban writer Evelio Traba was distinguished with the Juan Alcaide International Poetry Award for his work Un traspatio de malos vecinos, the jury announced.

The Faculty of Letters of the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), the Association Friends of Juan Alcaide of Valdepeñas and the publishing house Verbum, spoke in favor of Traba's book in the 40th edition of the Juan Alcaide Poetry Award.

The success of the Cuban author residing in Ecuador has its own merit, as he prevailed among 431 books by Spanish and Hispanic American writers who competed in the competition.

According to the jury, Traba addresses the conflict between reason and instinct, as well as love converted into an explosive device that the poet cannot defuse.

Likewise, it adds, 'he delves into memory as that place where the fullness of danger surpasses contemplative placidity'.

Those in charge of determining the award further argued that the Cuban poet offers 'great tropological richness and refined lyrical language'.

'A desire for minimalism and an obsession with converting the word, refounded by experience, into an antidote against the speed and chaos of the contemporary world', it added.

The jury was made up of poet Jaime Siles Ruiz, Rafael Morales (Association Friends of Juan Alcaide), Jesús Barrajón (Faculty of Letters of the UCLM), Sergio García Zamora (winner of the Juan Alcaide Prize 2020) and Luis Rafael Hernández (Verbum Publishing House). Evelio Traba (Bayamo, Cuba, 1985) was already recognized in 2019 with the V Exemplary Novels Award also granted by the UCLM and Verbum publishing house, for his work Dos versiones de Fray Bernardino.

The winner of the Juan Alcaide distinction will now receive one thousand euros, the publication of his book by Verbum and an invitation to attend next year's International Poetry Festival of Madrid.

Juan Alcaide Sánchez (1907-1951) was a Spanish poet member of the generation of 1936, with influences from Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, within the movement called rooted poetry.