National Prizes in History, Literature, and Social Sciences and Humanities Awarded

April 25, 2022

On the closing day of the 24th National History Congress, the 2022 National Prize in History was awarded to Matanzas native Urbano Martínez Carmenate, auxiliary researcher at the Palacio de Junco Museum, author of more than 25 publications, fundamentally in the biographical genre, who has been deserving of important recognition from the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, is a Prize of Criticism recipient, and whose contributions to Cuban historiography distinguish themselves, even in the approach to local history.

The Matanzas native Urbano Martínez Carmenate, auxiliary researcher at the Palacio de Junco Museum, received the National Prize in History at the Memorial to Los Malagones, in the municipality of Viñales, a monumental-sculptural complex that pays tribute to combatants in the Struggle Against Bandits, which was the venue for the closing ceremony of the congress.

Likewise, writer Julio Travieso Serrano received the National Prize in Literature for "the extraordinary merits of his narrative work and the rigor of his prose, where language, imagination, and solid structure shine."

Cuba's Minister of Culture presented the writer with the prize that recognizes an entire life dedicated to Cuban letters. "His clean, simple and clear prose is an effective instrument of a narrative discourse of undoubted significance in the context of current Cuban literature," the jury notes in the record, composed of Miguel Barnet –in his capacity as president–, Jesús David Curbelo, Emmanuel Tornés, Alberto Marrero, and Teresa Melo.

Travieso said he felt happy to receive this Prize and conveyed gratitude to all those who made it possible.

Another who received honors in the context of the International Book Fair was researcher, economist, and former Cuban minister José Luis Rodríguez García, to whom the 2021 National Prize in Social Sciences and Humanities was conferred, granted by the Ministry of Culture (Mincult) and the Cuban Institute of Books (ICL).

The ceremony was presided over by Alpidio Alonso, Minister of Culture, Omar Valiño Cedré, director of the José Martí National Library; jury members René González Barrios, director of the Fidel Castro Center, Yoel Cordobí Nuñez, president of the Cuban Institute of History, and jury president Isabel Monal Rodríguez.

According to the record read by Jesús Rodríguez Cabrera, president of the ICL, the distinction has been awarded for "the professional trajectory of the nominee with sustained contributions in the field of economic science and historical science in the specialty of economics, systematic work aimed at addressing shortcomings in the knowledge of a branch of learning key to understanding the political, social, and economic course of Cuba."