The Romanian poet Ana Blandiana has been awarded the 2024 Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature (Premio Princesa de Asturias de las Letras).

The jury for the award was chaired by Santiago Muñoz Machado and made up of Xosé Ballesteros Rey, Xuan Bello Fernández, Blanca Berasátegui Garaizábal, Gonzalo Celorio Blasco, Jesús García Calero, Pablo Gil Cuevas, Francisco Goyanes Martínez, Lola Larumbe Doral, Aurora Luque Ortiz, Inés Martín Rodrigo, Juan Mayorga Ruano, Carmen Millán Grajales, José María Pou Serra, Ana Santos Aramburo, Irene Vallejo Moreu, Juan Villoro Ruiz and Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente.

Ricardo Rivero Ortega, the rector of the University of Salamanca, proposed the candidacy.

Born in Timișoara in 1942, Ana Blandiana (the pen name of Otilia Valeria Coman) published her first book of poems - Persoana întâia plural (First person plural) - in 1964. She worked for the magazines Viata Studenteasca and Amfiteatru – where she published poems that have become icons of the fight against the communist dictatorship – and as a librarian at the Bucharest Institute of Fine Arts. In the late 1980s, she began writing protest poetry. 

After the 1989 Revolution, she started a campaign that promoted the elimination of the communist legacy and the creation of an open society. Since 1994 she has been a founding member and president of the Civic Alliance Foundation, an apolitical movement aiming to counteract the consequences of more than fifty years of communism in the country.

She is the honorary president of the PEN of Romania, a member of the European Academy of Poetry, the Mallarmé Poetry Academy, the World Poetry Academy (UNESCO), and the Romanian Writers' Union.  

Previous recipients of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature include Haruki Murakami (2023), Juan Mayorga (2022), Emmanuel Carrère (2021), Anne Carson (2020), Richard Ford (2016), John Banville (2014), and Philip Roth (2012).

There are eight Princess of Asturias Awards: the Arts, Social Sciences, Communication and Humanities, Concord, International Cooperation, Sports, Technical and Scientific Research, and Literature. They are aimed "at rewarding the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work carried out at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions."

The Princess of Asturias Awards ceremony is held in October in Oviedo, the capital of the Principality of Asturias. Each Princess of Asturias Award comprises a Joan Miró sculpture representing and symbolizing the Award, a diploma, an insignia bearing the foundation's coat of arms, and a cash prize of EUR 50,000.

(Photo: Inquam Photos / Malina Norocea)

simona@romania-insider.com