The 2022 Juan Ramón Jiménez International Poetry Prize was awarded to the work The Liquid Part of the World, by poet René Fuentes, a professor in the Writing Department of the School of Communication and Design at Universidad ORT Uruguay.
The results of the Juan Ramón Jiménez International Poetry Prize, organized by the Juan Ramón Jiménez Foundation of Coral Gables (United States) and Art-Sólido Publishing, were announced on December 23, 2022. The competition is based in Coral Gables, the city where the poet lived in exile and where one of his most beautiful poetry collections was born: Romances de Coral Gables, and other poetic works.
The Juan Ramón Jiménez Foundation of Coral Gables and Art-Sólido, in collaboration with local and international institutions, present the Juan Ramón Jiménez International Poetry Prize of Coral Gables with the aim of fostering poetic creation and promoting new authors within the Hispanic poetry scene, as well as honoring and celebrating the poet’s legacy to that city.
René Fuentes (Bayamo, Cuba, 1969) is a poet, novelist, and playwright. He has lived in Uruguay since 1996 and in 2002 received the Award for Teaching Excellence from Universidad ORT Uruguay. His most notable works include *Los gallinazos* (Cuba, Abril Poetry Prize, 1994, and Pinos Nuevos Prize, 1995), *Las trampas del paraíso* (novel, Uruguay, 1996, and United States, 2022), *El mar (Uruguay, novel, 2006, National Literature Prize, 2004), Caballo que ladra (Uruguay, Onetti Poetry Prize, 2013, and National Literature Prize, 2016), Guitarra del mesón (Spain, 2017, 9th Blas de Otero-Villa de Bilbao Poetry Prize, 2016), The Hand the Dog Carried in Its Mouth (Spain, 6th MonteLeón Foundation International Short Novel Prize, 2017), Pieces to Repair a Trill (United States, play, 2021), and The Seas That Name Me (collected poetry 1995–2020, Germany, 2021).
In October 2022, his Cervantes-inspired novel won the Vicente Blasco Ibáñez City of Valencia Prize for Fiction. On that occasion, Fuentes took first place in a competition that drew entries from 1,772 writers.