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FCG Internacional Literature Award 2009: JORGE EDWARDS
“Due to his exceptional commitment to literature and to humanity, highlighting his deep democratic convictions and his extraordinary and perceptive analysis of urban Chilean middle classes and the mark he has left on 20th Century history.
Since the publication of his work entitled “Persona non grata” in 1973 and others of similarly high literary quality such as Adiós poeta [Goodbye Poet], El sueño de la historia [The Dream of History], El inútil de la familia [The Useless Member of the Family] and La casa de Dostoievski [The House of Dostoievski], Jorge Edwards has undoubtedly occupied a pre-eminent place in current-day Spanish language literature.
Through his elegant and ironic style and with an unquestionable coherence, Edwards has been loyal to his own concept of literature: “Literature is created through memory, through a creative memory which one cannot induce or provoke and that absence stimulates.””
According to the Jury that met in Valladolid, Spain (June 29th, 2009), Chaired by: Mrs. Mercedes Monmany, Literary Critic and Writer, and made up by the following members: Mr. Rafael Monje Alonso, Director-General for Development and Content at Promecal Media Group; Mrs. Rosa Pereda, Writer and Journalist; Mr. Ángel Sánchez Harguindey, Assistant Editor of El País Newspaper; Mr. José Miguel Santiago Castelo, Deputy Editor of ABC Newspaper; Mr. Josep-Manuel Silva Alcalde, member of the Board of Directors of RTVE Spanish National Radio and Television Corporation.
JORGE EDWARDS - Biography
Jorge Edwards Valdés (Santiago, Chile, June 1931) is a Chilean writer, literary critic, journalist and diplomat. He is the son of Sergio Edwards Irarrázaval and Carmen Valdés Lira.
Born into the Edwards family and educated by Jesuits, Jorge Edwards, along with José Donoso, is one of the most prominent representatives of Chilean fiction. Graduated in Law from the University of Chile in 1958, he began a diplomatic career and, in 1959, was sent by the Chilean government to Princeton University (United States) to study political science. In 1962, he was appointed secretary of the Embassy of Chile in Paris, returning to his home in 1967 where he served as Head of the Department for Eastern Europe at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During this period he published his book of short stories "El Patio" [The Patio], "Gente de la Ciudad" [City People] and "Las Máscaras" [The Mask], as well as the novel "El Peso de la Noche" [The Weight of the Night]. During his first diplomatic mission in Paris he became friends with Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez and Julio Cortázar, among others. His name is associated, therefore, to the so-called boom in Latin America.
However, his reputation was really earned later on.
In 1971, Salvador Allende's government sent him as an Ambassador to Fidel Castro’s Cuba, where he barely stayed for three months because of his differences with the Cuban revolutionary government and his criticism of the dictatorial policies of that government. As a result of his experience in Cuba (Edwards was declared a persona non grata and he was requested to leave the island) he published his book entitled Persona non grata (1973), a publication for which he became well-known and which was a sober and corrosive criticism of Stalinism and the Cuban socialist system. The piece offered him the rare merit of being banned by both the Chilean and Cuban governments at the same time, earned him the enmity of left-wing political forces and created great controversy among Latin American writers.
On his return from Cuba, Edwards was sent back to Paris as secretary of the Embassy, where he was under the command of Pablo Neruda. After the coup d'etat with Augusto Pinochet at the head, Edwards was forced to leave the diplomatic service and took refuge in Barcelona (Spain), where he worked at Seix Barral publishers and devoted his time to literature and journalism. Edwards did not return to Chile until 1978, where he was founder and later chairman of the Committee for the Defense of Freedom of Expression. Once democracy was restored in Chile, President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle appointed him Chilean Ambassador to the Unesco (1994 to 1996). In 1994, he was awarded the National Literature Award. In 1999, he was awarded most distinguished Spanish-language literary award, the Cervantes Award.
Jorge Edwards' work consists mainly of novels and short stories. Edwards’ themes is a departure from usual Chilean literature, since instead of dealing with rural life, he has focused on urban environments and the upper middle class of his country.
Jorge Edwards is a frequent contributor to various newspapers, either in his native Chile, in the rest of Latin America (La Nación in Buenos Aires) and in Europe (Le Monde, El Pais and Il Corriere de la Sera). He currently writes an opinion column on Fridays La Segunda newspaper. Much of his journalistic work has been published in several books:
He has also written prose and biographies:
In 1979, Edwards was appointed a member of the Chilean Language Academy. Among the many awards and honors he has received, we can highlight the outstanding award as Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in France, the National Prize for Literature (1994), the Cervantes Prize, the most important distinction in the Spanish language, and the Gabriela Mistral Order of Merit, these last two both in the year 2000.