García Montero is invested with an honorary doctorate by the Universidad San Agustín de Arequipa in Peru
The director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, received this Tuesday in Arequipa an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Nacional San Agustín, the second largest public university in Peru with 24,000 students. The tribunal, presided over by the rector Hugo Rojas Flores, highlighted during the award ceremony that García Montero is "a magnificent poet, a renowned academic and a notable director of the Cervantes Institute", as well as possessing "an oeuvre, which, with good reason, is among the most outstanding of contemporary Spanish-American poetry".
The director of the Cervantes thanked the academic honour with a speech on the value of Spanish as a mestizo language, the dialogue between languages, science and technology as a fundamental axis of society, and democratic values based on human rights. "The dignity of the human being is a fundamental dignity", he added, and defended poetry as a rejection of closed identities and a defence of open identities that invite dialogue.
After citing the influence of García Lorca and Machado, he also reviewed the influence on his work of the Peruvians Bryce Echenique, Inca Garcilaso, Antonio Cornejo Polar, Ciro Alegría and José María Arguedas. Finally, he recalled the "enthusiasm" with which he immediately participated "in the dynamic set in motion by Vargas Llosa and Alonso Ruiz Rosas to make Arequipa the venue for the next International Congress of the Spanish Language in March 2023".
Meeting with the President of the Regional Council of Arequipa
Before the academic ceremony, García Montero met with the president of the Regional Council of Arequipa, José Luis Hacco, to reinforce preparations for the next Language Congress, and visited the facilities of the Mario Vargas Llosa Regional Library, where several of the programme's activities will take place.
Arequipa, the second most important city in the country, was chosen in 2019 to host this great Spanish language event, and since then work has been underway on the preparations and the complex organisation prior to the most important Spanish language event organised by the Cervantes Institute, the Royal Spanish Academy and the Association of Language Academies (ASALE).
The agenda of the Director of the Instituto Cervantes will continue on Wednesday 7, in Lima, with a meeting with the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luis Enrique Chávez, at the Torre Tagle Palace, and meetings with the Director of the Inca Garcilaso Cultural Centre, Guido Toro, and its head of curatorship (exhibitions), Gledna Landolt.
His working trip will end on Friday 8 with the investiture ceremony for his second honorary doctorate, which will be awarded by the rector of the Ricardo Palma University, Iván Rodríguez Chávez, and where Luis García Montero will give the master lecture 'A beggar poet and his illusions of mestizaje', a title that is a wink or allusion to his condition as a poet and to Cervantes' defence of understanding between Spanish-speaking peoples.
Submitted by José Antonio Sierra, Hispanismo advisor.