Leonard Cohen Prince of Asturias Award for Literature 2011

At its meeting in Oviedo, the Jury for the 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, made up of Mr. Andrés Amorós Guardiola, Mr. Luis María Anson Oliart, Mr. J. J. Armas Marcelo, Mr. José Manuel Blecua Perdices, Ms. Carmen Caffarel Serra, Ms. Amelia Castilla Alcolado, Mr. Juan Cruz Ruiz, Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart y Martínez de Irujo, Count of Siruela, Mr. José Luis García Martín, Ms. Pilar García Mouton, Mr. Manuel Llorente Manchado, Ms. Rosa Navarro Durán, Ms. Berta Piñán Suárez, Mr. Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente, Mr. Fernando Sánchez Dragó, Ms. Diana Sorensen,. chaired by Mr. Víctor García de la Concha and with Mr. Román Suárez Blanco acting as secretary, has 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 20^th and beginning of the 21^st century.

Oviedo, 1st June 2011