The 10th Anniversary of the Letras de Ultramar Literary Competition will be Celebrated in Style

The 10th Anniversary of the Letras de Ultramar Literary Competition will be Celebrated in Style
New York, February 3rd, 2015

The ceremony of the opening of the envelopes with the winning entries at the 10th Letras de Ultramar Literary Competition in the Novel, Short Story and Poetry categories, will be held on Friday, February 6, 2015, at the headquarters of the Dominican Commissioner of Culture in the United States.

The announcement was made by the Dominican Commissioner of Culture, Mr. Carlos Sánchez, who informed that 44 entries were submitted to participate in this edition of the competition: 8 in the Novel category, 13 in the Short Story category, and 23 in the Poetry category.

The event will start at 6:30 pm in the Andrés Francisco Requena events room, located at 541 West 145th Street, 2nd. floor, near the corner with Broadway, in Manhattan.

“The envelopes that were received by mail are sealed and each has the pseudonym of the writer who entered into the competition, as is established in the rules. Letras de Ultramar has a cash prize of US$5,000 and a certificate for each category,” Sánchez said. “The winners will also participate as Guest of Honor in the 18th International Book Fair Santo Domingo 2015, in which Peru will be the Country Guest of Honor,” he added.

“The names of the jury will be announced during the event, their decision will be read and the envelopes will immediately be opened in front of a notary public, who will certify both, the names of the writers and of the winning books,” said the Commissioner.

The event will include the awards ceremony of the First Popular Photo Competition Exprésate, whose theme was “My Dominican Culture”. The winners were: First Place, Jhoanna Pena Almonte; Jimmy Váldez, who won the Second Place, and Álvaro Ceballos, who won the Third Place.

The Audience Award, decided by the number of Like/me gusta received by the photos that were posted on the Facebook page of the Dominican Commissioner of Culture, was won by Yolanda Hernández’s photo.

The prizes are: 1st Place: A Digital SLR Camera; 2nd Place: A Laptop Computer; 3rd Place: An Electronic Tablet, and the Audience Award: A Plaque of Recognition and a Certificate.

Furthermore, on the same evening, awards will be presented to the members of the Commissioner’s Book Club who won the raffle at the quarterly meeting of the Club: five book baskets, an electronic tablet and a round trip ticket to the Dominican Republic to participate in the 18th International Book Fair Santo Domingo 2015.

This event marks the beginning of the celebration of the Month of the Dominican Homeland, which include the presentation of the movie “Duarte, betrayal and glory” by filmmaker Leo Silverio, and the conference “Independence, race and identity” by historian Luis Alvarez.

Commissioner Sánchez informed that for the Tenth Anniversary of the Letras de Ultramar Award, a large cultural festival will take place in March, which will include lectures on Dominican literature, readings of portions of the winning works, video covering the history of the award, and a presentation of a portion of the theater play Ascenso y caída de Andresito Reyna, by Frank Disla, the 2013 winner of the Letras de Ultramar Award. The event will culminate with the presentation of the Letras de Ultramar Awards.

The Commissioner of Culture has invited the media, participating writers and lovers of literature in general, to attend these activities.

The Letras de Ultramar Literary Competition, aims to encourage, recognize and promote literary creation by Dominican writers who for various reasons have taken up residence outside their homeland. The first edition of the competition was convened in 2005 in the Poetry category, and the winning book at that competition was Saint Domingue, 2044, by Osiris Vallejo. Reminiscencias, a storybook by writer Keiselim A. Montás, was the winner in 2006. In 2007, the novel A la sombra del flamboyán, by Dinorah Coronado, was the winner. In 2008, Antonio Méndez won the award with his book of essays La mujer dominicana: inmigrante en busca de la igualdad. In 2009, the theater play La redonda peña despeñada, by Jimmy Valdez, was the winner.

In 2010, for the first time, the competition included three categories: Novel, Short Story and Poetry. The winners were: Rubén Sánchez Féliz, with the novel Los muertos no sueñan; Rey Andújar, with the storybook Saturnario, and Daniel Baruch Espinal Rivera, with the book of poems Roja iconografía de los otoños.

And in 2011, the award was won by Diógenes Abreu with the play La Jom Atenda; Esteban Torres, with the essay Antropología dramática; and Juan Carlos Campos “Koldo” with the children’s book El rey necio.

In 2012, the winners were: Rubén Sánchez Féliz, who won the awards in the Novel and Short Story categories with his works Un cuarto lleno de anguilas and Ya nunca será como antes, respectively. And, Daniel Baruch Espinal Rivera, won the award in the Poetry category with his work La música y el vértigo.

In 2013, Diógenes Abreu, who resides in New York, won the Essays category with Sin haitianidad no hay dominicanidad: cartografía de una identidad que se bifurca; Frank Disla, who lives in New Jersey, won in the Theater category with the play Ascenso y caída de Andresito Reyna; and César Sánchez Beras, who lives in Massachusetts, was the winner in the Children’s Literature category with El sapito azul y el misterio sonoro.

The winning entries will be published by Editora Nacional in the Ultramar Collection, and they will be submitted formally as part of the 18th International Book Fair Santo Domingo 2015.

For more information, please call (212) 234-8149.