Princess Leonor of Spain highlighted this Friday that the figure of the Spanish singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat, awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature 2024, is “much more than an artistic reference for several generations whom he has made happy”, because He has also shown “his commitment to democracy and tolerance.”
During the awards ceremony held in Oviedo (north), the heir to the Spanish Crown said that these days she has listened to “many songs” by “this musician and poet from Poble Sec” and that she has read “his lyrics carefully.” ”.
“Serrat declares himself in favor of living because, from time to time, life refines with the brush; “Our skin crawls and there are no words to describe what it offers to those who know how to use it,” said the princess.
Leonor quoted in Catalan, and later in Spanish, a verse by Serrat from the song Els veremadors: Pels voltants de setembre, abans, que arribi el fred, compran el seu bitllet per al tren de l’esperança or Around September, before Before the cold arrives, they buy their ticket for the train of hope, to highlight that the winners offer “the emotion contrary to skepticism or discouragement”, “the emotion of hope”.
“It is the feeling that shows us that things can improve, that there is always a crack where the light enters,” he said.
In the first ceremony held when the princess came of age, it was Mrs. Leonor, instead of her father, King Felipe VI, who gave a profile of the winners in each of the eight categories of the Princess of Asturias.
From the Organization of Ibero-American States, Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 2024, valued that “it puts its efforts into providing the most vulnerable with the necessary tools to better approach and understand life, to develop as full-fledged human beings,” to “achieve social development through education, science and culture.”
“The OEI makes what we hear so many times a reality: that only education can transform societies, consolidate democracy and promote respect for human rights,” he said.
Regarding the Spanish athlete Carolina Marín, Sports Award winner, he recalled that “she has won everything and in everything she has been exemplary,” and stated that “the most important thing is not that her years of effort, training and great performance have led her to the highest in a sport, badminton, which was very little known in Spain.”
The heir to the Spanish Crown praised the Romanian poet and activist Ana Blandiana, winner of the Literature Prize, “her activism in the defense of human rights and democracy,” and that she stood up to “totalitarianism, with her clean poetry.” “clear, refined.”
The winner of the Communication and Humanities award, the French-Iranian filmmaker, cartoonist and painter Marjane Satrapi, also dedicates her life to this, continued Mrs. Leonor, of whom she noted that “she exposes in her creations the conditions she experienced in those years with her impressive talent to capture the search for a more just and inclusive world, and that gives us hope. And it has reinvented in a dazzling way the common language of art and communication,” he added.
Of the Magnum photography agency, Concordia award winner, he highlighted that “it sharpens the gaze with its bold and truthful photojournalism, giving independence to its photographers and lending history the imprint of the events.”
Regarding the scientists Svetlana Mojsov, Daniel Drucker, Jeffrey Friedman, Joel Habener and Jens Holst (Research Award), he stated that they have found their way of cooperating in the field of endocrinology and have developed a tool that can be of help to people with diabetes and obesity.
When speaking about the Canadian writer, academic and former politician Michael Ignatieff, winner of the Social Sciences Prize, he recalled that he has spent four decades studying the rule of law, public freedoms and individual rights, and also ideologies and nationalisms, and indicated that his thoughts “ It is a challenge, a challenge that attracts us because it speaks to us about shared values and the permanent challenge of coexistence,” said the heir to the Crown.
