Arcadio López Casanova, Galician poet and professor of the Master’s Degree in Advanced Hispanic Studies, has been awarded by the provincial councils of Galicia with the honorary Otero Pedrayo award in its 2015 edition.

This award is yearly bestowed by Galicia’s four provincial councils (with the support of the Galician Government) to a person or institution within the Council in charge of organising the award that year. It recognises the contributions of awardees to Galician culture, to the promotion of its own values, to the illustration of the citizens and to the improvement of institutions in the field of Human Studies and in the field of Knowledge. In this edition, the organization of the award was in the hands of the Culture Area within the Lugo Council.

The jury -composed of the Xunta President, the Council presidents, the president of the Cultural Committee of Lugo and the representatives from Galician universities and academies- has ruled in favour of professor López “as a recognition of his long history as a writer and researcher”.  This institutional award consists of 16000€ (2000€ from each Council and 8000€ from the Xunta).

Arcadio López-Casanova  is emeritus full-university professor of Spanish Literature by the Universitat de València, and professor of the Master’s Degree in Advanced Hispanic Studies (he teaches the subject “Workshop on Literary Writing”). He has received, among others, the Adonis Award of poetry (1978, for La oscura potestad), the Valencian Critic Award (2003, for En oscuro desvelo) or the Galician Award for Humanities (2012). Additionally, he was a finalist of the National Award of Critics for his work “Mesteres”.

As a researcher and literary critic, he has published studies on the language of poetry, Medieval lyrics or the life and work of Miguel Hernández, among many others. He is a member of the Royal Galician Academy; he has been tenured university professor at the Department of Spanish Philology at the Universitat de València since 1986.

Furthermore, he has just published two works of children’s and young people’s literature: the poetry book entitled Cancioneiriño. Do tempo e a paisaxe, dos traballos e as festas (Santiago de Compostela, Ed. Folllas Novas), and the theatre work entitled O soño de Bolboreta (Vigo, Ed. Ir Indo). The cultural magazine “Gallegos” published, not long ago, a long interview on his life and work.

On Cancioneiriño: “It is a poetry book aimed at the youngest readers; regarding its form, it follows the genuine tradition of Galician lyrics (the popular lyrics or “cantiga”). Divided into seven parts, it includes themes such as time and season, environmental elements, the sea and navigations, works and days, parties and enjoyment; it, hence, rounds up a collection of “cantigas” (lullabies, Christmas songs...). The book was illustrated by Juan Vidales Pousa, a painter from León.