Mayabeque, Cuba: One of the coveted awards in the current universe of the Cuban written Decima, which is honored with the name of Francisco Riverón Hernández, in its Tenth edition, corresponding to 2020, has just been conquered by the poet Alexander Jiménez del Toro, who has a significant work as a writer inside and outside the country, Trabajadores newspaper reports.
The results of this literary contest, convened each year by the Provincial Directorate of Culture of Mayabeque and the local Montecallado Publishing House, were announced, together with those of the Félix Pita Rodríguez contest, by those same organizers and this time dedicated to children’s literature , for the Mayabeque newspaper and the always useful site Claustrophobias.
The latter pointed out that the jury, “made up of Dimaris Águila, Juan Carlos García Guridi and José Manuel Espino, awarded the Francisco Riverón Prize to the book of decimas Animal stationary, by Alexander Ramón Jiménez del Toro, from Las Tunas.
Alexander told Claustrophobias that the book is structured according to the seasons of the year, and in it he reflects on loneliness, ostracism, isolation, the unstoppable passage of time”.
They are themes of strong presence in the work of this author, as in many of the Cuban and Ibero-American decimistica contemporaneity, a novel writer with deep ontological concerns and referring to the existential anguishes that mark the current world, of which his groups have attested in the stanza of ten lines such as The Conjuring of the Rain and Tusks of the Coast, deserving of awards in competitions in recent years.
A sample of these thematic areas in the now awarded Stationary Animal is the poem that we offer as a preview, thanks to the kind collaboration of its author:
Alexander Jiménez del Toro, also a narrator, is a member of the National Group of Rural Writers (GNERarte), based in the territory of Las Tunas.
He has obtained recognitions in several competitions, among them the First Prize in the Mundo Marino contest (tenth, poetry); He was a finalist in the national trova and poetry contest El verso y la miel, convened in Holguín by the Hermanos Saíz Association and Ediciones La luz; He won the National Prize for Illustrated Tenth in the Cucalambeana Day 2014.
In the XV national contest Ala Décima (2015) he deserved the Guillermo Cabrera Álvarez Award, from the Juventud Rebelde newspaper, for a young author, for his work El conjuro de la lluvia.
In that same year, he won the Ala Décima Group Prize in the First G-NERarte written décima contest, during the V National Meeting of Rural Writers.
In 2016, his ensemble Colmillos de costa won the Prize of the V contest Toda luz y toda mía, announced at the IV Festival of the homonymous group, based in Sancti Spíritus.
Among his most recent achievements is, in the middle of last year, the important prize for poetry in the Pinos Nuevos National Contest, sponsored by the Dulce María Loynaz Cultural Center, of the Cuban Book Institute, with his work Stone of sacrifice.
And in the course of the present and no less convulsive 2021, his participation in the Poetas Artistic Project in parallel. Poetry and community, created by the CubEArt Association and the Milan Poetry House, in collaboration with the Cervantes Institute of that city and the Cuban Book Institute.