Palabras de S.M. en el almuerzo ofrecido a una representación del Mundo de las Letras

Link to the news article: https://www.casareal.es/ES/Actividade... Welcome to the Royal Palace of Madrid. The Queen and I are delighted to welcome you to this annual celebration of our shared literature, language, and culture, on the occasion of the presentation—tomorrow—of the Cervantes Prize to the Mexican writer Gonzalo Celorio. “We are our memory,” Jorge Luis Borges wrote in his poem Cambridge, “we are that chimerical museum of inconstant forms, that heap of broken mirrors.” With the title of his memoir, “That Heap of Broken Mirrors,” Gonzalo Celorio pays homage to the master Borges, whose death in Geneva we commemorate 40 years ago, and who navigated with unparalleled skill the meanders between identity and memory. A good memoir is, at once, the story of a life and of an era. In his, our Cervantes Prize winner speaks to us about some fundamental aspects of his life; aspects that explain the time we share, and that—for that very reason—explain something to all of us. Gonzalo Celorio celebrates the Spanish language, to which he has dedicated his life in almost every possible facet: as a storyteller, as a teacher, as an academic, as an essayist, as an editor. A language that flows across an immense space, from North America to Patagonia, from the Mediterranean to the Pacific, and that already boasts 650 million speakers. This great mirror of our language—a mirror with the soul of a kaleidoscope, as in Borges's stories—opens us to infinite opportunities for knowledge and creation. It produces an imaginary world that does not exclude, that does not separate, that does not inhibit difference, but rather the opposite: that includes us and enriches us all. In him we see ourselves and recognize ourselves, as Spanish speakers and as Ibero-Americans. I say this today, on the eve of presenting him tomorrow in Alcalá de Henares with the most important prize in our literature, and just a few months before Madrid hosts the 30th Ibero-American Summit, of which Spanish—along with Portuguese—is the great common language. Celorio recognizes and celebrates, in light of his personal experience, the contribution to Mexican culture of Spanish intellectuals in exile. With the gratitude of a disciple, he speaks to us of those teachers who, despite distance and uprooting, continued to feel Spain as their own. With more than half a century of teaching behind him, Celorio has reflected extensively on the value of education, its usefulness in shaping critical minds, dismantling prejudices and commonplaces, and advancing toward a more rigorous, more nuanced understanding of things and events. A knowledge that—without being perfect, for it never is—comes as close as possible to that shared quest of which Machado spoke: “Your truth? No, the truth. And come with me to find it.” With great agility, Gonzalo Celorio moves between his memories and the great historical events of his time. This is a fortunate constant in his work: knowing how to build a bridge between personal experience and collective memory. This requires not only reading what is written but also being able to read between the lines. That is the purpose of the novel: the powerful narrative device whose pinnacle is Don Quixote, and of which Celorio has given us some outstanding examples. Let me explain by quoting our award winner: “The novel is not limited to telling what people do, say, and think, but also accounts for what they hope for, what they dream, what they invent; for everything that also forms part of reality (…) even if it is neither measurable nor verifiable (…): beliefs, myths, memories.” The writers gathered around this table know exactly what I mean. Because, with your work, you help us to truly understand reality. And this ability—to read, to understand ourselves—is essential from a collective perspective—as a democratic society—and from an individual perspective: for the ethical and moral fulfillment of the person, for the full exercise of the rights and freedoms inherent in citizenship. Literature is, ultimately, a great school of freedom; and “freedom”—as Don Quixote said—“is one of the most precious gifts that heaven has bestowed upon mankind.” So I raise my glass to our Cervantes Prize winner, Gonzalo Celorio. And to that inexhaustible freedom offered to us through words.