The Jury for the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters 2000, convened in Oviedo, comprising Andrés Amorós, Luis María Anson, Blanca Berasátegui, Pedro Casals, Antonio Colinas, Rafael Conte Oroz, Jorge Fernández Bustillo, Francisco Javier Fernández Vallina, Fernando García de Cortázar, José Luis García Martín, Pilar García Mouton, Fernando González Delgado, Fernando de Lanzas Sánchez del Corral, Rosa Montero, Rosa Navarro Durán, Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente, Fernando Sánchez Dragó, Darío Villanueva, chaired by Víctor García de la Concha, and with José María Martínez Cachero as secretary, decided by a majority vote to grant the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters 2000 to the Guatemalan writer Augusto Monterroso. His narrative works and essays create a literary universe of extraordinary ethical and aesthetic depth, highlighted by a Cervantine, melancholic sense of humour.

His narrative work has changed the short story, and has bestowed upon it a literary intensity and an opening-up towards unprecedented story lines. His exemplary past as a citizen, the harsh reality of exile, and his permanent concern for the immediate affairs of modern life in Latin America all make the internationally famous Augusto Monterroso one of our culture's most exceptional writers.

Oviedo, 31st May 2000