# Luisa Campuzano Sentí Awarded the Félix Varela Order of the First Degree

**Date:** 03/10/2023

The Félix Varela Order of the first degree was awarded to essayist, researcher, and professor Luisa Campuzano Sentí in a ceremony held at Casa de las Américas in Havana.

The event, which took place in the emblematic Che Guevara hall of that institution, was attended by writers, artists, friends, and colleagues of the honoree.

This constitutes the highest distinction awarded to Cubans and foreigners, as well as cultural collectives in recognition of extraordinary contributions made in favor of the imperishable values of Cuban and universal culture.

In his words of praise, essayist Jorge Fornet, director of the Literary Research Center of Casa de las Américas, recalled her extensive years of work dedicated to culture, research, and teaching.

For her part, the graduate in Classical Literature and Doctor in Philology expressed the great honor it means for her to bear a distinction with the name of Félix Varela, one of the Cubans who, despite the distance, loved and defended the island the most.

She asserted that she feels like a privileged person for everything she has lived and learned over all these years and for the possibility of having been close to great Cuban artists and intellectuals such as Roberto Fernández Retamar, Alejo Carpentier, José Lezama Lima, Cintio Vitier, Servando Cabrera, among others.

Fornet referred to the value of Luisa Campuzano's (Havana, June 1, 1943) teaching as Full Professor of the Faculty of Arts and Letters and member of the Scientific Council of the University of Havana from 1977 until her retirement in 2000.

Furthermore, she founded and has directed since 1994 the Women's Studies Program of Casa de las Américas, where between 1987 and 1994 she was in charge of the Literary Research Center and the coordination of the Casa de las Américas Literary Prize.

A member of the Cuban Academy of Language, the distinguished Cuban intellectual has been at the helm of the magazine Revolución y Cultura since 1998 for 25 years, and as of 2008 she joined the board of directors of the Alejo Carpentier Foundation.

She is the author of the books Brief Outline of Pre-Platonic Poetics (Arte y Literatura, 1980); Literary Ideas in the Satyricon (Letras Cubanas, 1984, Critics' Prize); and Chiron or Essay and Other Events (Letras Cubanas, 1988).

Other works of hers are Carpentier Then and Now (Letras Cubanas, 1997); The Girls of Havana Have No Forgiveness from God (Unión, 2004, Critics' Prize); and Narcissus and Echo. Classical Tradition and Latin American Literature (La Bohemia, 2006).

She is the author of more than one hundred prefaces, articles, and essays published in books and magazines. Furthermore, she has been a professor and has offered postgraduate, master's, and doctoral courses in universities in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and the United States.

Campuzano delivered lectures at more than 20 universities in Europe, Latin America, the United States, and Canada, while also participating as a speaker in more than one hundred national and international conferences, many of them as part of their organizing committees.

She received the Distinction for Cuban Culture, the Distinction for National Education, the José Tey Medal, the Frank País and Carlos J. Finlay orders, the Latinidad Prize from the Latin Union; as well as the Critics' Prize in 1985 and 2004.