• Submitted by: admin
• Arts and Culture
• Literature
• 06 / 20 / 2009

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On its 51st edition, the contest will accept non-published poems and plays written by Latin American authors, as well as Brazilian authors who have written and published non-fiction books in Portuguese during 2008-2009. English-speaking Caribbean authors who have published books in English or Creole during that same period of time are also welcome to participate. There will be a sole prize for each category, consisting on three thousand US dollars or their equivalent in the local currency of the contestants.

The Havana-based cultural institution Casa de las Americas is calling for its 2010 Literary Awards. On its 51st edition, the contest will accept non-published poems and plays written by Latin American authors, as well as Brazilian authors who have written and published non-fiction books in Portuguese during 2008-2009. English-speaking Caribbean authors who have published books in English or Creole during that same period of time are also welcome to participate.

There will be an extraordinary award for essays dealing with the bicentennial of the Spanish-American emancipation. This will be a way to pay tribute to the two hundred years of the start of the independence war in the Spanish-speaking Americas.

The Latin American poets and playwrights can be either natural-born or naturalized. The authors are required to send three printed copies, double-spaced and with numbered pages. The works shouldn’t be longer than five hundred pages.

The authors are also required to send only one book per literary genre, and even when the books shouldn’t be published, they shouldn’t be in any phase of the printing process either. They shouldn’t have been awarded in any previous local or world contest.

The organizers of the 2010 Casa de las Americas Literary Award have stated that there will be a sole prize for each category, consisting on three thousand US dollars or their equivalent in the local currency of the contestants. The jury will give as many mentions as they deem necessary. The winning works will be published by the Casa’s publishing house, which will have the exclusive rights for the first edition, with a maximum print run of 10 thousand copies.

The contestants should mail their works to Casa de las Americas, 3ra y G, El Vedado, La Habana 10400, Cuba, or to any of the Cuban embassies in the world, before 31 October 2009. The jury will get together to discuss the contesting works in January 2010. The contest as such will take place from 18-28 January.

Casa de las Americas has just turned 50 years. Cuban President Raúl Castro and a group of top government officials turned up at the celebration early this year to pay their respects and considerations.

Founded in 1959 by the late female guerrilla fighter Haydee Santamaría, and currently chaired by author and researcher Roberto Fernández Retamar, Casa de las Américas promotes, researches, sponsors, awards and publishes writers, artists, musicians, y scholars in literature and the arts, a combination that encourages the interchange of institutions and people all over the world.

Source: ACN