Poet, narrator and essayist Juan Carlos Mieses was selected as the winner of the 2024 National Literature Prize, an award presented by the Ministry of Culture and the Corripio Foundation in the Dominica Republic. The recognition ceremony took place on Tuesday, February 20, in the Carlos Piantini room of the National Theater. For the original article, in Spanish, visit Acento. [Many thanks to Sophie Maríñez for bringing this item to our attention.]
[. . .] About the winner
Juan Carlos Mieses was born in the city of Seybo, in the Dominican Republic, in 1947. From an early age he moved to Santo Domingo where he received a Catholic education that would later be reflected in his literature.
In his adolescence, he worked as an actor and schoolteacher while at the same time learning French and beginning a law degree that he interrupts to travel to France to study Modern Literature. He spent five years in Toulouse, where he met his future wife, Evelyne Grimaud.
From a very young age he began to publish poems in cultural journals, but soon abandoned writing for almost twenty years until he published Urbi et Orbi in 1983 (Siboney Prize 1983), a collection of poems that would later be translated into Occitan and Norwegian. From that moment on, he dedicated himself fully to writing poetry, as well as theatrical pieces such as “Los siete sueños de Meuda San,” “La Cruz y el cetro,” and others that were staged in the 1990s.
At the end of the 1980s, President Mitterrand granted him French nationality. He lived with his wife for long periods of time in various countries around the world, such as Jamaica, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil. These were travels that enriched him spiritually and during which he began his trajectory as a novelist. Currently, he lives in the suburbs of the city of Santo Domingo and dedicates himself exclusively to writing.
Among his poetic works we find “Flagellum Dei” (Siboney Prize 1985), an epic poem about King Attila; “Aquí, el Edén,” a series of provocative portraits of Santo Domingo; “Dulce et decorum,” a harsh social and historical critique; Gaia (Pedro Henríquez Ureña Prize 1991), a rhapsody about man and the cosmos; and “Desde las islas” (Nicolás Guillén International Caribbean Poetry Prize 2001), another epic poem about the Antillean man.
He has published two novels—“El día de todos” (Editorial Alfaguara 2009) and “Las palomas de la guerra” (Editorial Sanctuary). He also published “Oda al Nuevo Mundo” and his complete poetic works collected in a single volume to be called “Caminos sobre la mar.” He has also published several short stories.
He created the site http://www.jcmieses.com as well as several blogs such as http://eldiadetodos.blogspot.com and http://laspalomasdelaguerra.blogspot.com.
For original article, see https://acento.com.do/actualidad/juan-carlos-mieses-premio-nacional-de-literatura-2024-9297135.html
For more information, see https://cultura.gob.do/index.php/noticias/item/2561-entregan-premio-nacional-de-literatura-2024-al-escritor-juan-carlos-mieses#:~:text=Santo%20Domingo.,del%20Teatro%20Nacional%20Eduardo%20Brito.
Poet, narrator and essayist Juan Carlos Mieses was selected as the winner of the 2024 National Literature Prize, an award presented by the Ministry of Culture and the Corripio Foundation in the Dominica Republic. The recognition ceremony took place on Tuesday, February 20, in the Carlos Piantini room of the National Theater. For the original
