Fernando del Paso received the Cervantes – La Nacion (Argentina)

MADRID.- Fernando del Paso says his longest struggle has been against health. In his day of glory, sitting in a wheelchair, the Mexican writer listed without pause the list of ailments that he had to face: tumors, fractures, diseases two open-heart operations, brain stroke that affected mobility and

speech. “I of Spain was coming but was stretchered jet propulsion,” read this morning in front of king Philip VI during the ceremony of acceptance of the Cervantes Prize, the highest honor of Hispanic literature . Step -of 81 years made him laugh and mourn in the dazzling Auditorium of the University of Alcala de Henares. He reviewed his life and his work, held his family, reaffirmed its commitment to writing, laughed at himself and took the spotlight to report that Mexico is dangerously looming totalitarianism.

He said he was ashamed criticize his country abroad, but I could not help warn about the approval of a law that gives discretion to the police to arrest and even shoot in demonstrations or public meetings. “For me swallow my shame to report that we are only at the beginning of a totalitarian state that we can not afford it.”

That left him. He kept his word to talk some politics and a lot of literature. . He told his birth -assisted by fórceps- in 1935. “I cried and I did in Castilian Thus When I cry, I cry in Castilian When I laugh, cough and sneeze, do it in Castilian That’s not all… I also read and I write in Castilian. ” He ran his influences, barely breathing. Mentioned Borges, Onetti, Carpentier, Cortazar, Vargas Llosa, Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo (who was assistant and friend), Miguel Hernandez and dozens more.

it is hardly noticed when they heard the havoc left in stroke he suffered months ago. He said he had recovered speech after plunging in the rereading of his greatest work, Empire News (1985). “My voice has he returned my voice,” he said.

Del Paso is the sixth Mexican to win the Cervantes in the 40 editions of the prize. The jury recognized for his “contribution to the development of the novel, combining tradition and modernity” and defined it as a “plural creator voluntarily eccentric” who knew how to excel in poetry, essays, fiction, drama, children’s literature , journalism.

True to its strident aesthetics, the author of José Trigo and Palinuro Mexico was presented to the ceremony with large dark glasses and a red broad yellow, very bright tie. “I brought the colors of Spain cerquita chest,” he whispered to the kings Felipe and Letizia when they approached to greet him before the act. “Do you feel good? How did you spend the night?” He preo-fit monarch. “Well, well, you forgive you can not get up,” he said from his wheelchair. He was surrounded by his wife, Socorro, and the long list of children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and friends who accompanied him from Mexico to seek the highest award of his career.