2022 Paz Prize for Poetry Awarded to Cuban poet Oneyda Gonzalez Posted in: News

The National Poetry Series and Miami Book Fair are proud to announce that Oneyda Gonzalez is the winner of this year’s Paz Poetry Prize for an original manuscript of Spanish language poetry.

The National Poetry Series, in collaboration with Miami Dade College’s (MDC) acclaimed Miami Book Fair, with the National Poetry Series, is pleased to announce the 2022 Paz Prize for Poetry winner: Cuban poet Oneyda Gonzalez for her manuscript El lazo infinito.

Oneyda GonzalezBorn in Camagüey, Cuba, Gonzalez has previously published La ciudad promisoria and El camino de Bárbara (poetry). Her texts appear in the anthologies Mujer adentro and Catedral sumergida. In 2003 she published the book of narratives Las cinco y una noches, and coordinated the compilation Escrito sobre un rostro, about Severo Sarduy, to whom she returned in Seres en el borde (2007). Polvo de alas. El guión cinematográfico en Cuba (2009) brings together her interviews with critics, directors and screenwriters of Cuban cinema. In 2010, Cuentos claros is published, while she was working on the documentary project Severo Secreto, which was awarded the “Amigos de la Biblioteca de Princeton” Research Grant in 2015. Her most recent publication is Una biografía coral sobre Severo Sarduy, Ediciones Rialta, 2022. Gonzalez has a master’s degree in Latin American culture.

“I am very excited that the Miami Book Fair’s Paz Prize for Poetry has been awarded to my book El lazo infinito, Gonzalez said. “Writing a book is a learning process, and it is very nice to see that it is received with affection. I feel that the Paz Prize seeks to expand links between the many cultures that coexist in this country by offering the opportunity for Latino writers’ texts to be read in both languages.”

Gonzalez’s book, selected by judge Lourdes Vázquez, will be published in an English and Spanish bilingual edition by Akashic Books.

“There was strong competition, but El lazo infinito stands out for its unique inner depth,” Vázquez said. “In a kind of introspective scenario —a movie theater— a poem begins the rite and as a voice, an ‘I’ (that personal identity) in continuous dialogue with her inner voice. That never-ending reflection creates a universe of revelations, desires, and knowledge, and its course diverge, intermingle, and grow like the stems of a plant.”


The finalists for the 2022 Paz Prize for Poetry are:

Gamerover by Giancarlo Huapaya
Querida Beth by Andrea Cote Botero
Amor, Amada, America by Edgar Galeano
Breviario de Americanismos by Carlos Aguasaco
Aguacerando (Mitollogias Domesticas De Lo Que Nunca Fuimos) by Elidio La Torre Lagares
El día que el poema se detuvo by Leon Felix Batista
Ellas cantaban nuestros derrumbes by Manuel Lopez
Contra el olvido by Claudia Noguera Penso
Cuaderno cruel by Ena Ruiz
Baladas crueles by Rosie Inguanzo
Cuerpos partidos by Melanie Marquz Adams
El libro de los recados by Lila Zemborain
Los pasos del puente by Douglas Gomez Barrueta
Perseo en si bemol by Kella Vall de la Ville
Logografía discreta by Luis Correa-Diaz
Criadero by Noraya Ccoyure
Deserta by Mike Hernandez
Apnea by Lionel Valdivia

 

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