The author, who has achieved the most important award of the genre among those given in Spain, and endowed with 42,000 euros, considers that "the standards must be widened, but without destroying it."

The 2020-2021 academic year has been good for Ana Luísa Amaral (Lisbon, 65 years old). Her collection of poems What 's in a Name, translated by Paula Abramo for Sexto Piso, received the award given by the booksellers from Madrid for the best poetry book of the year (Elvira Lindo and Irene Vallejo obtained it in the novel and essay categories, respectively).

For her part, the Leteo Prize, which is awarded in León, recognized the whole of her work. The same was done by Vergílio Ferreira, from the University of Évora, one of the most prestigious in Portugal. This Monday she has won the Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry, endowed with 42,000 euros, the most important of the genre among those awarded in Spain. Amaral succeeds Chilean Raúl Zurita in a record that in 1992 was achieved by another Chilean, Gonzalo Rojas. She also becomes the fourth Portuguese-language author to obtain it, after Brazilian João Cabral de Melo Neto (1994) and her Portuguese compatriots Sophia de Mello Breyner (2003) and Nuno Júdice (2013).

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