During his visit to Canada, the head of state personally hands the author of 'The Handmaid's Tale' a distinction, 18 years after awarding her the Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature.
Felipe VI has formally presented, almost two decades after the state recognition of the grande dame of Canadian letters through the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, the Joan Margarit Prize, created by the Cervantes Institute last September.
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Mónica and Pol Lezcano Margarit, daughter and grandson of the Catalan poet and professor of architecture who died in 2021, were tasked with giving a reading of poems written both by Margaret Atwood and by their relative during the ceremony, held at the University of Victoria.
"We would like you", the King said in his speech, "to receive this prize as a token of our gratitude for having taught us how to read better: how to read our times, how to read our societies and how to read ourselves".
The head of state is concluding this Thursday a three-day tour of Canada, accompanied by First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo, with stops in Ottawa and Toronto. The two have taken part in several business meetings and have been received, among other politicians, by Labour Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Atwood, in a speech entitled "Poetry in hard times", recalled that under authoritarian regimes poets "have been among the first to be silenced, because they could say what was forbidden, and say it convincingly, and that is threatening to autocrats".
