Mexican writer Jose Emilio Pacheco won on Monday the 2009 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the highest literature award granted for writing in Spanish.
The prize, which amounts to 188,000 U.S. dollars, is granted annually by the Spanish Ministry of Culture to honor the lifetime achievement of a Spanish language writer.
According to the president of the jury Joe Antonio Pascual, Pacheco is "an extraordinary poet of the quotidian life, for his capacity of creating a world of his own and for the ironic detachment from the reality seen in his works," and to define Pacheco was to define a whole language.
Pacheco, 70, who is also a poet, translator, essayist and short story writer, is considered one of the best Mexican writers of the 20th Century.
Among his most important works are "El viento distante y otros relatos," "El reposo del fuego," "El principio del placer," and "Batallas en el desierto."
He has also translated several famous books, such as Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Oscar Wilde's "De Profundis," and
taught at various universities in the United States, Canada and Britain. He has now returned to Mexico city.
In the past, Pacheco received other awards, such as the Reina Sofia Prize, which is granted to a living author whose works constitute a relevant
contribution to the Ibero-American culture, the Jose Denoso Prize and the Octavio Paz International Prize of Poetry and Essay.
The Cervantes Prize, created by the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 1975, has so far been given to 18 Spanish writers and 17 Latin American
writers.