Bracho was chosen among 59 nominations from 22 countries representing seven languages for her continued inquiry into politicization in poetry.
Mexican poet and essayist Coral Bracho won the FIL Prize for Literature in Romance Languages 2023, announced Monday in Mexico Vittoria Borso, spokeswoman for the jury of seven literary critics and writers.
Bracho (born in Mexico City in 1951) was chosen among 59 nominations from 22 countries representing seven languages for “her continued inquiry into the political nature of poetry and the weight of the written word,” Borso said at a press conference in the city of Guadalajara.
The prize, endowed with 150,000 dollars, will be awarded on November 25 at the inauguration of the 37th edition of the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), considered the most important in the Spanish-speaking world and which this year will have the European Union as its guest of honor.
“Coral Bracho’s poetry wonders about the ways in which the world is discovered and named, provoking a sensitive intelligence on the part of the reader. Her work then becomes an archive of vital experiences where oblivion, illness, pain and death are thought,” the jury determined in the award’s minutes.
Writer Coral Bracho wins the FIL Literature Award 2023
The jury recognized Bracho as an “outstanding figure of a neo-baroque poetic genealogy” that is “essential for the continental language and for world literature”.
After learning of the ruling, the poet assured by videoconference that the pleasant contact with poetry and literature since childhood is crucial for life, and assured that no artificial intelligence will be able to replace the way in which verses reach human sensibility.
“I don’t know where artificial intelligence will take us, but I know it will be a very, very long time before it gets to where poetry gets to,” he said.
“They will be able to copy it, make simulations, but what truly touches poetry in human beings in terms of freedom, perception, in cognitive and emotional terms, artificial intelligence will hardly hinder it,” she said.
The author of books such as “La voluntad del ambar” (1998), “Cuarto de Hotel” (2007), “Si rie el emperador” (2010) and “Debe ser un malentendido” (2018) recalled that in her adolescence she gave up her idea of devoting herself to science after starting in poetic writing that transmitted her a way to approach the “emotional reality” and “the reality of the world”.
Bracho’s work has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000, the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 2003, the Jaime Sabines-Gatien Lapointe International Poetry Prize in 2011 and the Coatlicue Prize in 2018.