Leonard Cohen - A Man of Spanish Letters

Canadian writer Leonard Cohen has been award the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters, a prestigious Spanish literary award. The Prince of Asturias Awards recognizes those that contribute to encouraging and promoting the scientific, cultural and humanistic values that form part of mankind’s universal heritage.

Here is what the Jury had to say about this year's award:

"[The Jury] decided by majority vote to confer the 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for Letters on the Canadian poet and novelist Leonard Cohen for a body of literary work that has influenced three generations of people worldwide through his creation of emotional imagery in which poetry and music are fused in an oeuvre of immutable merit. The passing of time, sentimental relationships, the mystical traditions of the East and the West and life sung as an unending ballad make up a body of work associated with certain moments of decisive change at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century."

Here is a statement from Leonard Cohen:

"I am most grateful to be recognized by the countrymen of Machado and Lorca, and my friend Morente, and the incomparable companions of the Spanish guitar".

Leonard Cohen
New York, 2nd June 2011