The Diplomat
The Cervantes Institute will receive a legacy from Panamanian singer-songwriter Rubén Blades, composer of the legendary salsa song “Pedro Navaja,” next Saturday, May 23, as part of the Central America Counts Festival, which will be held from May 18 to 23 in Panama City and will feature the prominent participation of the Spanish institution.
At this event, which will take place at the City of Arts in Panama City at 9:00 p.m. local time (4:00 a.m. Spanish time), the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, and the composer himself will speak. Once delivered, the legacy will be transferred to the Vault of Letters to be safeguarded by the Spanish institution.
Rubén Blades holds degrees from the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Panama and from Harvard University. His career has been intertwined with music, film, and politics, and his song “Pedro Navaja” became a major international hit.
Since then, he has recorded numerous albums and collaborated with salsa and rock stars, such as Lou Reed, becoming one of the most influential artists in Latin America, with over fifty years in the music industry.
He has received accolades such as the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture, and the Harvard University Medal of Arts, the first time it was awarded to a Latin American artist. In 1996, he received the Grammy Award for Best Tropical Latin Artist.
The Central America Counts Festival celebrates its next edition in Panama, bringing together voices from literature, journalism, and contemporary art from nearly twenty countries for six days of conversations, readings, workshops, and cultural events.
From Poem to Song
As part of this program, the Cervantes Institute will be present on Saturday, May 23, at 5:00 p.m. local time (midnight Spanish time). García Montero will participate in the colloquium “From Poem to Song” at the City of Arts, alongside producer and composer Billy Herron, in a discussion moderated by poet and editor Carmen Lucía Alvarado. The events can be followed live on the festival’s YouTube channel.
Additionally, the Cervantes Institute will present the “Mario Vargas Llosa Dictionary” the day before, Friday, May 22, at 7:00 p.m. local time (2:00 a.m. Spanish time), as part of the Central America Tells Stories Festival. This work brings together a hundred voices that evoke the universe of the author of works such as “Conversation in the Cathedral.”
The event will feature speeches by the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, as well as writers Sergio Ramírez, Gioconda Belli, and Carlos Wynter, and Pilar Reyes, editorial director of Penguin Random House.
The dictionary was previously presented at the 10th International Congress of the Spanish Language (CILE) at an event attended by the writer’s daughter, Morgana Vargas Llosa.
One hundred authors
“The Mario Vargas Llosa Dictionary: He Inhabited Words” is an A-to-Z journey through the literary and geographical universe of the Peruvian Nobel laureate, in which various contributors find a connection between their chosen words and the author of works such as “Conversation in the Cathedral” and “The City and the Dogs.”
This dictionary, published by Cervantes in its Los galeotes collection, brings together a hundred words that run through all the letters of the dictionary, entrusted to a hundred “writers” —family members, friends, narrators, philosophers, filmmakers, poets, professors, readers— who evoke the books and life of Mario Vargas Llosa.