Ibero-American Poetry Award: Giannina Braschi receives the 2025 FRAY LUIS DE LEÓN MEDAL FOR IBERO-AMERICAN POETRY from Salamanca, Spain.
Fray Luis de León Medal for Ibero-American Poetry
GIANNINA BRASCHI RECEIVES THE 2025 FRAY LUIS DE LEÓN MEDAL FOR IBERO-AMERICAN POETRY
Salamanca “City of Culture and Knowledge” Spain 2025
Giannina Braschi receives Fray Luis de León Medal for Ibero-American Poetry
Braschi is the first woman to win this prestigious international poetry prize. Upon receiving the news of this honor, she stated:
“Fray Luis de León wrote these words on the wall of his cell when he was unjustly imprisoned in Valladolid by the Spanish Inquisition: Here envy and lies/have locked me up. When he was released from prison after four years, Fray Luis resumed his chair position at the University of Salamanca and began his speech with these words: As we were saying yesterday. I cannot help but think of the thousands of Latinos imprisoned in the U.S. without having committed any crime, but the crime of having been born Latino. The movement of Latino immigrants and the movement of emigration in general must not be stopped by racism. We have to fight for the Kantian ideals of perpetual peace and the cosmopolitan right to universal hospitality, starting here in our Americas, from the tippy top of the Yukon to the tippy toes of la Tierra del Fuego.” Giannina Braschi
Giannina Braschi’s work is a benchmark of contemporary American literature. Among her most iconic titles are the postmodern epic poem El imperio de los sueños/Empire of Dreams (1988), the groundbreaking novel in Spanglish Yo-Yo Boing! (1998) and the geopolitical tragicomedy United States of Banana (2011). Her new book Putinoika (2024) dramatizes the rise of frenzy, rage, and plague in the era of Putin and Trump and explores themes of collusion, pollution, and delusion.
Through her poetry, Braschi pays homage to the more than sixty million Hispanics residing in the United States and examines the complex sociopolitical, cultural, and linguistic relationships between Spain, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. Her writing, in Spanish, Spanglish, and English, addresses a variety of topics such as immigration, economics, colonialism, love, freedom, creativity, and gratitude.
PEN America has described Giannina Braschi as “one of the most revolutionary voices in Latin America,” while the U.S. Library of Congress describes her poetry as “cutting-edge, influential, and even revolutionary.”
CAREER AND HONORS
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Braschi was a fashion model and tennis champion in her teen years. She went on to study literature and philosophy in Madrid, Florence, London, and Rouen before settling in New York City in the late 1970s.
Among her early mentors were the Puerto Rican playwright René Marqués (La carreta) and the public intellectual Nilita Vientos Gastón, who successfully defended Spanish as the official language of the Puerto Rican court system. During her studies at the Complutense University of Madrid, she was influenced by distinguished Spanish poets such as Carlos Bousoño, Claudio Rodríguez, and Blas de Otero, who encouraged her literary vocation.
With a Ph.D. in Hispanic Literatures from the State University of New York at Stony Brook (1980), Braschi taught at Rutgers University, City University of New York, and Colgate University. She has written about titans of Spanish poetry, such as Cervantes, Garcilaso, Machado, Bécquer, and Lorca.
Braschi’s other Lifetime Achievement prizes include the Angela Y. Davis Award from the American Studies Association (ASA), the oldest and largest academic organization dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the cultures and histories of the United States. She also received the Cambio16 Prize in Spain for creating a literature of activism and hope, and the Enrique Anderson Imbert Prize from the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE), in recognition of her career and contributions to the dissemination of the Hispanic language and culture in the United States.
IMPACT AND LEGACY
Braschi’s lifeworks are the subject of the academic anthology of essays Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama and Tess O’Dwyer with a forward by Ilan Stavans. The volume brings together fifteen scholars from seven countries and diverse disciplines, each shedding light on Braschi’s vast contributions to Hispanic culture and Latinx philosophy.
Giannina Braschi has left an indelible mark on contemporary literature as one of the most innovative poets of our time. Often described as “unclassifiable,” Braschi’s work fuses poetry, fiction, drama, and political philosophy. World Literature Today notes that “Braschi’s reach has come to exceed not only the boundaries of literary genres but literature itself.”
Tags: Ibero-American Poetry Award, FRAY LUIS DE LEÓN MEDAL, IBERO-AMERICAN POETRY, IBERO-AMERICAN POETS, Iberoamerican poetry awards, Ibero-American poet, Ibero-American literary awards, Salamanca poetry award, ZENDA , Medalla Fray Luis