Fundación Jesús Serra announces the winners of its 14th edition of the Poetry Contest

"With a total of 1,255 works presented by authors from 32 countries, this edition has reached the maximum participation in its history."

Fundación Jesús Serra has published the name of the winners of the 14th edition of its Poetry Competition, an initiative that aims to promote culture in general, and in particular, poetic creation. 

In its 14th edition, the competition is consolidated as unique in its genre, due to its high level of entries and international reach. Specifically, this year it has reached the maximum participation in its history, with a total of 1,255 works presented by poets from 32 countries. 

The competition allows authors in all age groups from all over the world to participate in both Spanish and Catalan. As a result, the competition features three categories: category A (from 18 years of age) with a prize of €2,500; category B (aged between 14 and 17 years) with a prize of €1,500; and category C (from 10 to 13 years of age) with a prize of €800. 

Within this setting, Fundación Jesús Serra's judging panel, comprising the writers Elena Medel, Andrea Valbuena, Carlos Zanón, David Castillo and Ricardo Fernández Aguilera, selected the following works and their respective creators in each of the categories as winners of the Poetry Competition.

In category A (aged 18 years and above), in Spanish, and with a prize of €2,500, the prize has been awarded to the piece:  

Verano de 1994, by Karmele Ruiz de Gopegui Peláez. Bilbao

In category B (aged between 14 and 17 years), in Spanish, and with a prize of €1,500:

Ni de mi casa, by Laura Hurtado Acín. Barcelona

In category C (aged between 10 and 13 years), in Spanish, and with a prize of €800:

Estaré, by Carla Sanmartín Wagemann. Madrid

In category A (aged 18 years and above), in Catalan, and with a prize of €2,500:

La Foieta, by Manuel Roig Abad. Ibi (Alicante) also winner also in the 2018 edition

In category B (aged between 14 and 17 years), in Catalan, and with a prize of €1,500:

Nana, nena, nina, nona nuna, by Tània Keukenmeester Barnés. Caldes de Malavella (Girona)

In category C (aged between 10 and 13 years), in Catalan, and with a prize of €800:

Escriure, by Noa Abike Bazuaye Martínez. Barcelona

In addition to this edition's record participation, it should be emphasised that international poets sign 23% of the works presented to the competition, while the remaining 77% correspond to Spanish authors. Also noteworthy is the considerable increase of works presented in categories B and C, the registration of which has doubled. Meanwhile, category A remains the most popular and represents 75% of the total entries.

With the aim of disseminating the poetic genre and consolidating the initiative, Fundación Jesús Serra also created a new category of the Poetry Competition in 2020: the Special Award. With a prize of €5,000, this new award acknowledges the career of an author, as an example for future generations. In this edition, the prize was awarded to the poet, narrator, essayist and translator from Castilla y León Antonio Colinas; whereas, last year the award went to the Catalan Feliu Formosa.

The awards ceremony for the 14th edition of the Poetry Competition will be held on 2 July at 19:30 at Torre Bellesguard in Barcelona. Due to the current situation brought about by COVID-19, physical access to the event will be limited to the winners, relatives and judges. The event will also be streamed via the following link: https://www.youtube.com/user/fundacionjesusserra 

 

The jury of the 14th edition of the Fundación Jesús Serra Poetry Competition

Carlos Zanón is the author of several poetry books, of the novels Nadie ama a un hombre bueno, Tarde, mal y nunca, Brigada 21 prize for the Best First Novel of the Year, and finalist for the Silverio Cañada Memorial, Giallo e dell Noir (Italy), and Violeta Negra (France) awards; No llames a casa, awarded Valencia Negra prize for the Best Black Novel of the Year, and Yo fui Johnny Thunders, awarded the Salamanca Negra prize, Novelpol and Dashiell Hammett, as well as the story book Marley estaba muerto. With Taxi, he was established as one of the most important authors in Spanish literature. In 2019, he published Problemas de identidad, a continuation of the Carvalho series by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. His narrative work has been translated in the United States, Germany, France, Holland and Italy. He collaborates as a columnist and literary and musical critic in newspapers, magazines and cultural supplements.

Elena Medel is a writer from Cordoba particularly dedicated to the field of poetry. She has published the collections of poems Mi primer bikini (2002), which received the 2001 Andalusian Youth prize, awarded by the Andalusian Youth Institute; Tara (2006); and Chatterton (2014), which won the Loewe prize in their Young Creation category. She is also the author of the books Vacaciones (2004) and Un soplo en el corazón (2007). 

Her poems have been translated into German, Arabic, Armenian, Slovenian, Basque, French, English, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Swedish and Swahili. Her work appears in numerous recent poetry books. As a storyteller, her stories have also been published in various anthologies. In 2016, she received the Princess of Girona Foundation Arts and Letters Award.

Andrea Valbuena graduated from the Complutense University of Madrid in English Studies, and she began writing poetry and shared her first poems by creating a still-active blog called Brevedad. Through social media, Andrea began to earn her place within literature and managed to self-edit two poetry collections. 

In 2016, she wrote Magoa and won the 1st Valparaiso Poetry Prize, which allowed her to publish her work for the first time. In 2018, she published her second poetry collection, Si el silencio tomara la palabra. In March 2020, she published her latest poetry collection, Lagrimacer o el acto de derramarse, this time with Verso y Cuento (Penguin Random House).

She has also collaborated in publications such as the Maremágnum magazine or Con Pluma y Plomo, by the Complutense University of Madrid, and in numerous events at national and international universities. With Elvira Sastre, she has taken poetry to classrooms throughout Spain, and has performed on several occasions in Latin America.

David Castillo is a Catalan poet, founder in 1989 of the cultural supplement of the newspaper El Punt-Avui, after collaborating in major national newspapers and magazines during the eighties. He was director of the magazine Lletra de canvi for eight years and served as a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona for five years.  He has organised different poetry cycles and was founder and director of the Barcelona Poetry Week in 1997.  In September 2017, he took over as Chairman of the ACEC (Catalan Writers' Association).  He has the highest distinctions in Catalan literature, from the Sant Jordi prize for novels, the Carles Riba for poetry, the Crexells for the best novel of the year and different Atlántida awards as a literary writer. Some of his most noteworthy works include Game over, El cielo de infierno, Espalda desnuda, Sin mirar atrás, Downtown, Poesía, Contracultura, Barcelona and El túnel del tiempo.

Ricardo Fernández Aguilà has been a professor and writer born in Barcelona. A graduate of Hispanic Philology, he is the author of Un Fernandes entre banderas (2014), Un profesor se despide (2017) and online stories Un entender no entendiendo (2012-2013). He has also done introductory studies and translations in the books El diálogo como el inconsciente: Antonio Machado by Antoni Pascual Piqué (2009) and 32 poemas by Màrius Torres. His project El despertar de la conciencia a través de la poesía (The awakening of the consciousness through poetry) has travelled to cities such as Barcelona and Madrid in search of the inspiration of poetry for the different stages of life. For more than forty years, he has been a secondary school teacher, as well as a translator, especially of children's literature.

You can follow the latest news about the Competition on the Fundación Jesús Serra social media profiles with the hashtag #ConcursoPoesíaFJS or on the website https://www.fundacionjesusserra.org/concurso-poesia