Hundreds of people attended the meeting with the winner of the 2013 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. The act was part of the prigram organized by the Prince of Asturias Foundation in collaboration with the academic institution.
Hundreds of students and teachers crammed the Library of the Campus of Humanities of the University of Oviedo to welcome the brand new winner of the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, Antonio Muñoz Molina, and share during more than an hour and a half a review of his works and his thoughts as a writer and articulist. Muñoz Molina was welcomed by the Vice-Rector for Students, Luis Rodríguez Muñiz, and the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Cristina Valdés, and her team.
Professor José Luis García Martín was in charge of presenting the writer from Jaén, who he said to be "more than a writer. He is a sage and a true master". The vision that Muñoz Molina himself offers of his works served as the linking thread to the video in which teachers and students of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters posed their questions to the author.
In his visit to the Campus of El Milán, the winner of the Prince of Asturias Award highlighted the vital role of that the arts and the humanities have to play in our society and remarked that it is the task of not only writers to denounce its greatest issues. "Not only writers have to face this reality. It is the work of every and each of the citizens that live in this democracy", he claimed. Moreover, the author questioned the figure of the intellectual. "If one makes al ist of the things that the so-called "intellectuals" have said during the 20th Century, they have said so many stupidities and, sometimes, taken as criminal a position, that it would have been better that they remained silent", he argued.
Muñoz Molina spoke about writing as "a job where it is difficult to cheat" and answered the questions posed by the teachers of the University on different aspects of his life. Vidal de la Madrid Álvarez, Javier González Santos, Antonio Fernández Insuela, Marta Mateo, Cristina Valdés and Noelia Suárez (student of Spanish Philology) posed questions to the author on the film adaptations of his literary works, his relation with the translators of his works and his fascination with the mystery of the painting titled El jinete polaco, which gives title to one of his most famous novels.
As the crowning jewel of the act, Muñoz Molina uncovered a plaque that will commemorate the visit of the winner of the Prince of Asturias Award to the Campus of Humanities. Furthermore, the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Cristina Valdés, gave the author a copy of the video shown during the act as a souvenir of his visit.
