Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

6 O viedo | C ampoamor T heatre | Furthermore, I wish tomanifest here todaymy admiration for Hispanic culture and to acknowledge my debt to it, that same culture I have experienced in Spain and in many Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, in which I have lived many years of my life: mostly in Chile, but also in Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and —with great intensity in the last decade— Colombia and Mexico. I would like to make a very special mention of the heartfelt bonds I have with the University of Chile, Mexico’s unam and the Ibero-American University of Puebla. I identify strongly with the entire Latin world: Italy, Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America, Portugal and Brazil, without forgetting, of course, France. What best characterizes the Latin world for me is the lack of permanent, solid correspondence between its citizens and its institutions. France and the French, Spain and the Spaniards, Italy and the Italians… have never been the two sides of the same coin. The relationship all of us have always had with the country we are citizens of seems to be more one of love —with its passions and its conflicts— than one of professional or philosophical identification. Alain Touraine — Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities 2010 Excerpt from the speech given on the occasion of receiving the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities on 22/10/2010. 22 nd O ctober 2010