Raúl Zurita after winning the Reina Sofía Prize for Poetry: “I was doing an online class when they called me” – Shows and Culture

“I have given 50 years of my life to poetry, given everything-everything-everything without leaving an open door in case things did not go well, without leaving me an exit door.”

This is how the flaming winner of the Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry, Raúl Zurita, his relationship with the art of which he has made his occupation. In conversation with 24 Hours Channel the artist commented on the award highlighting that he feels “part of a previous river and much broader, that great river of poetry that is with Pablo Neruda, De Rokha, with the Mistral, today with Elicura Chihuailaf, with Enrique Lihn “, he mentions among a large list of Chileans who have dedicated their lives to letters.

“That great flow that is nourished where one goes sailing, taking the hand of all the companions”said the poet before sharing his vision of the events that have marked this year, which has been so unusual that he even received the news of the award in an abnormal situation: “I was doing an online class when they called me.”

“I am terrified for 2020. I’m terrified not so much for myself, because I can finally be locked up here with my wife, whom I adore (…) A horror to see something: how that tremendous poverty has emerged “, he commented in reference to 2020 adding that” the that they are well, they are well: happy the happy ones “, but that “What this pandemic has shown is that those who are wrong are too bad.”

Photo: Aton Agency.