• The winners speak Carrère vindicates Cervantes, Vila-Matas, Cercas and "my dear cousin Rosa Montero"

  • Marina Abramovic "In my career I have felt a lot of loneliness, depression and shame"

  • Emmanuel Carrère "Good is more mysterious than evil"

  • Gloria Steinem "Abortion can also be a relief and cause for celebration"

  • José Andrés "We are a drop of water in a sea of ​​empathy"

The pandemic, of course, waited in a corner of Don Felipe's speech at the delivery of the Princess of Asturias Awards, one of the most important on his annual calendar. «During the last months, the Queen and I, with our daughters, have known and shared sadness and concern with all Spaniards. But

we have also shared and felt the hope and the will to live of thousands of citizens who continue to give us

all the

strength

to be able to express again, without fear, our feelings; to go back to that time when we could hug each other.

"Gratitude, commitment to others, a sense of citizenship, community service or loyalty to our country," continued the King, "are pillars of a society capable of overcoming itself; of a society in which, if we are immune to the suffering of others, we will be alone in the pain.

Don Felipe, his heir, Princess Leonor, Doña Letizia, her youngest daughter and Queen Sofía presided over the return to normality of the Awards. Far has been 2017, the year in which the ceremony was a very tough test for the institutions of Spain, a country that that autumn seemed to be heading towards self-destruction. 2019 is also far away, when Princess Leonor made her public debut and began to build her character among the Spanish. But the 2020 edition is still recent, when sanitary precautions forced an intimate ceremony to be held in

a chapel of the Hotel Reconquista

.

This year, the awards ceremony returned to the Campoamor Theater, the winners met again with the Asturian public and the King and Princess of Asturias gave

exemplary

state speeches

and not as saturated with significance as in the hard years

.

Princess Leonor and Felipe VI, this Friday in Oviedo.Eloy AlonsoEFE

We start with the Princess.

Doña Leonor first made a

brief

laudatio

of the winners and gave them an educational value that is appropriate for a 15-year-old girl: «Knowing you, your works and your lives, is something that has motivated me even more in my task of training and study, you project on us, on the youngest, the certainty that we also have a lot to contribute, that

we can be important and show ourselves responsible in trying to think about a more sustainable

, fairer, better

future

for all ».

They were not routine words: Doña Leonor has studied the awards.

De Carrère, for example, has read several books.

¿

The adversary

maybe?

It is not a small book for that age.

«I will soon return to my studies with the memory of a new awards ceremony that, once again, excites and moves us.

And I will miss this land, Asturias, which I love so much and where my sister Sofía and I always feel at home ».

For now, his father, Don Felipe, continues to give the most anticipated speech of the ceremony.

Who did the King remember in his message?

Instead of preferably, La Palma.

«Today, our eyes turn to the Canary Island of La Palma. I would like to have a very special memory -necessary, but above all very heartfelt and affectionate- for those who live there, who have suffered the tremendous volcanic eruption for a month, and who have seen their lives affected in such a dramatic way and with so much helplessness as sadness. Many of them have lost everything. [...].

They have asked us not to forget them and, together with all Spaniards, it will be so; We will not forget them

.

The king later praised the winners: the audacity of Marina Abramovic, the critical thinking of Gloria Steinmen, the crucial work of the educators of the Campaign for Female Education, the nonconformity of Emmanuel Carrère, the perseverance of Teresa Perales, the influence of Amartya Sen, the determination of World Central Kitchen, the saving work on vaccines ...

«Our winners have always given us an example of solidity and firmness in their intentions.

Its causes show the greatest commitment that human beings can have: commitment to others

.

«[The winners] have warned us of the fragility of democratic values, which are not given to us;

and whose vigor and validity always demand a firm, permanent, constant and conscious defense ", continued Felipe VI." That

the strength and security of a better future depend on the responsibility

, the fulfillment of the duty that corresponds to each one, solidarity and our cohesion. Therefore, we must continue forward with confidence, along the straight path of values ​​and principles that enhance a society and that are shared and transmitted to us by our winners. I firmly believe that, if we do so thus, we will succeed. And no matter how difficult the challenges are, we will overcome them, "he concluded.

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