Cuban writer Emerio Medina wins the Iberoamerican Short Story Prize Julio Cortázar 2023

September 15, 2023

The prestigious award was created to honor the Argentine writer and encourage storytellers from around the world who write in Spanish.

The Iberoamerican Short Story Prize Julio Cortázar 2023 was awarded to the story El hombre que vino a leer, by Cuban Emerio Medina, reported the Cuban Book Institute this Wednesday.

The Havana-based institution Casa de las Américas hosted in an official ceremony the presentation of the prestigious award, created to honor the Argentine writer and encourage storytellers from around the world who write in Spanish.

A jury made up of writers Dazra Nova, Hernán Ronsino and Emmanuel Tornés decided to grant the first Honorable Mention to the text Picasso en el aire, by Cuban Alberto Guerra Naranjo.

Likewise, other mentions were awarded to the works Los Apostadores, by Yunier Riquenes García (Cuba); Los muertos son invisibles, by Odymar Varela Barraza (Colombia); La noche bella no deja dormir, by Ronel González Sánchez (Cuba); No más flores, capitán, by Rolando Alexander Rivera de los Ríos (Peru) and La paradoja de Gutenberg, by Ernesto Pérez Castillo (Cuba).

The contest, which in this edition received more than a thousand texts from throughout Iberoamerica, has narrator and ethnologist Miguel Barnet as honorary president and poet Basilia Papastamatíu as general coordinator.

The Cuban Book Institute, Casa de las Américas and the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, with the sponsorship of the Ministry of Culture of Argentina, convene the competition.