María Elena Llana is the 2023 National Literature Prize Winner

December 27, 2023

The jury decided by majority to award the recognition to the author of Casas del Vedado for "the pioneering originality of her writing that has stood out for the cultivation of more than peculiar themes"

The writer and journalist María Elena Llana Castro was the winner of the 2023 National Literature Prize, among 11 other nominated authors.

A jury, headed by poet and essayist Nancy Morejón and made up of authors Olga Marta Pérez Rodríguez, Marilyn Bobes, Rafael Acosta de Arriba and Jesús Lozada Guevara, which met at the capital's Centro Dulce María Loynaz, decided by majority to award the recognition to the author of Casas del Vedado for "the pioneering originality of her writing that has stood out for the cultivation of more than peculiar themes."

The panel also recognized, according to the minutes, that "alongside an indisputable stylistic skill through which she breaks certain urban myths, her characters cast an unprecedented look at the capital's social environment," and also noted that the writer's voice "has contributed to the formation of subsequent creators whose center is installed in the most refined tradition of a literary vocation in service of noble causes and in favor of imagination, as well as good practice."

"I am happy because I have felt the happiness of those who have been delighted with the Prize," the writer told Granma, who assured that she had never lifted a finger to be among the nominees. "It satisfies me that there are so many people who have believed in it," she said, given the numerous congratulations she is receiving from all over at this moment.