Antonio Gamoneda in conversation with Luis Muñoz

First season of Literary Conversations:

Antonio Gamoneda in conversation with Luis Muñoz.

Date: 19 April 2015.
Venue: Granada Book Fair Central Space.
Sponsorship: EEA Grants and Centro Federico García Lorca Consortium.

Antonio Gamoneda (b. Oviedo, 1931), the winner of the Cervantes Prize in 2006, is one of the most significant voices in contemporary Spanish poetry. Although his age places him among the poets of 1950s generation, Gamoneda’s poetry stands apart from the features often found in the work of his contemporaries. As a result, his poetry took its time to be properly appreciated and understood. The pain of seeing injustice, his propensity for beauty and pity based on the fraternity of the dispossessed reach heights seldom achieved, all at the service of an essentially pessimistic outlook. His many published works include Descripción de la mentira (1977), Edad (1987; winner of the National Poetry Prize in 1988), Libro del frío (1992) and Esta luz (2004). In 2009 he published his autobiography, Un armario lleno de sombra. In 2006 he was awarded the Queen Sofía Ibero-american Poetry Prize.

Luis Muñoz (b. Granada, 1966) holds a degree in Hispanic and Romanic philology from the University of Granada. In his hometown he directed the poetry journal Hélice (1992–2000). In 1994 he prepared the group collection El lugar de la poesía and has translated writers including Giuseppe Ungaretti (El cuaderno del viejo, Pre-Textos, 2000). In 2008 he curated the exhibition Gallo: Interior de una revista, about the publication that Lorca edited in 1928. His poetry by 2005 was collected in Limpiar pescado: Poesía reunida 1991–2005 (Visor, 2005). His other poetry collections include Septiembre (Hiperión, 1991), Manzanas amarillas (Hiperión,1995), El apetito (Pre-Textos, 1998), Correspondencias (Visor, 2001) and Querido silencio (Tusquets, 2006). He is currently a visiting professor at the University of Iowa. In 2015 Luis Muñoz was invited to give the opening speech at Granada Book Fair.