Enrique Pérez Díaz is the National Publishing Prize 2023

February 20, 2024

Cuban writer and editor Enrique Pérez Díaz received today at the International Book Fair of this capital the National Publishing Prize 2023 for his management and leadership in the Cuban publishing world, according to the jury's consideration.

A tribunal presided by poet, essayist, art critic and researcher Virgilio López Lemus recognized in Pérez Díaz an excellent editor, in addition to his work as a writer with equal effectiveness, the minutes emphasized.

The honoree belongs to the circle of the most outstanding creators within the panorama of literature for children and young people in Cuba, according to the document presenting the award.

Made up, furthermore, by the 2020 National Publishing Prize winner Mercy Ruíz, editor and literary critic Basilia Papastamatiu, poetess and narrator Lourdes González, and poet and editor Luis Yusef, the committee recognized for its ruling the trajectory of an entire lifetime and a human being of great simplicity.

His work in the so-called fine arts led him to obtain multiple awards, but among those that have given him the greatest joy is his participation as an international jury member of the Hans Christian Andersen prize, considered the Nobel Prize of children's literature, an appointment that was granted to him in 2014.

For anyone to achieve recognition is something unexpected, and it was for me too; one does not work to receive it and this one that was granted to me today has a double magnitude, said the writer.

It is not the prize for a competition because you presented the work and that's it, but rather, it is simply what happens when someone takes your curriculum, nominates it, then a series of people evaluate it and decide whether you deserve it or not, said the poet and narrator.

I understand there were many good candidates this year, therefore, it was a true surprise, declared the also journalist, critic and literary researcher.

Pérez Díaz recounted that he was in a very strong flu-like state when they called him to give him the news.

I thought I wasn't hearing correctly due to my illness, but for me the greatest joy was the moment when everyone was sharing happiness in naming me for the prize, he expressed.

Born in this capital on April 11, 1958, he graduated from the University of Havana as a Bachelor of Journalism.

From 1993 to 2008 he was president of the Children's Literature Section of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba and a member of the Cuban Committee of the International Organization for Children's and Young People's Books (IBBY). Co-author of the chapter on Cuban children's literature for "The new history of Cuban Literature from 1959 to 1989," Pérez Díaz wrote an exemplary work on the subject in Latin America and the Caribbean for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Children Literature, of England.

In 1998 his research project "The Nobel Prize of Letters for Children" was selected for him to develop through a grant from the Internationale Jugendbibliothek (International Youth Library) of Munich, Germany.

He has also been associated editor for Cuba of Bookbird, of IBBY, collaborator of the Latin American Magazine of Literature for Children and Young People, of the journal Vagón Literario (of Alfaguara), and editor and journalistic writer of the bulletin Meñique Informa, of the Cuban Committee of IBBY. As a lecturer and in his capacity as a reporter he participated in scientific events and taught courses in Spain, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Mexico, Germany, Colombia, as well as in Canada, Italy and Switzerland.