Leonardo Padura inaugurates the Literary Salon of the Guadalajara International Book Fair

November 28, 2020

Cuban writer Leonardo Padura will open the Carlos Fuentes Literary Salon of the Guadalajara International Book Fair, in its special online 2020 edition, and will receive the medal that pays permanent tribute to the author of "The Clearest Region", which since 2012 has been awarded by Silvia Lemus, Fuentes' widow, and the Fair to an established writer.

Through a statement, the Fair, which opens today Saturday, announces that the winner of the 2015 Princess of Asturias Prize for Letters will deliver a keynote address in which he will review intimate aspects of his creative process, exile and what it represented in his life, and his perception of History and how it has influenced the writing of some of his best-known works.

The activity, one of the most important of the Fair, is presented by the newspaper "El País" and the literary award. It can be followed tomorrow Sunday, at 12 o'clock, through the official FIL page (www.fil.com.mx) and its networks.

In this way, the Cuban writer joins the list of authors who have received the Carlos Fuentes Medal.

Leonardo Padura (Havana, 1955) is one of the most celebrated and awarded contemporary writers of the continent.

He is a novelist, journalist and screenwriter, known for his detective stories about detective Mario Conde and the volume "The Man Who Loved Dogs" (2009).

His work has been translated into 30 languages and has earned him the Café Gijón Prize (1995), Hammett Prize (1998 and 2006), Prix des Amériques Insulaires et de la Guyane, Francesco Gelmi di Caporiaco (2010), as well as the Order of Arts and Letters (2013) and the Princess of Asturias Prize for Letters (2015), among others.

The Fair's authorities expect to personally present the medal to Padura in 2021. The FIL has been awarding the Carlos Fuentes Medal since 2012, a distinction that the Mexican writer's family and the Fair grant to authors with extensive careers.