Editors note.

Clark, David Draper

As WORLD LITERATURE TODAY proudly marks eighty-one years of continuous publication, it is important to note that the magazine's longevity and prestige are due in large part to the tradition of its major affiliated programs: the Puterbaugh Conferences on World Literature, the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the latter of which is awarded during even-numbered years to a single writer selected by a jury of peers (i.e., poets, fiction writers, dramatists, translators, editors) who convene on the campus of the University of Oklahoma for deliberations. (For more on the Neustadt Prize, visit the WLT website at www.worldliteraturetoday.com.) Each Neustadt Prize is awarded by a different panel of international jurors--with the exception of the one permanent member, who is the executive director of WLT and chair of the proceedings. A generous endowment from the Neustadt family of Ardmore, Oklahoma, and Dallas, Texas, ensures the awarding of the prize in perpetuity.

As is our custom, the editors and staff of World Literature Today produce a special section devoted to each Neustadt Prize laureate as a way of celebrating their contributions to world literature and of documenting for our readership the life and work of the recipient. The current issue of WLT is dedicated to the nineteenth recipient of the Neustadt Prize, Claribel Alegria, one of the most revered, prolific, and versatile writers of Central America.

Born in Esteli Nicaragua, Alegria moved with her family to El Salvador at the age of six months. Since the late 1940s, she has published nearly fifty books representing many different genres, including poetry, essays, novels, novellas, short stories, testimonios (literature of witness), and children's books. Together with her late husband, Darwin J. "Bud" Flakoll, Alegria has produced groundbreaking anthologies of Latin American writers and published Spanish translations of such important English-language authors as Morris West and Robert Graves.

Along with Elizabeth Bishop (U.S.) and Assia Djebar (Algeria/France), Alegria is only the third woman to win the prize in its illustrious, thirty-six-year history--even though, coincidentally, there has been a steady increase in the number of women who have served as jurors for the award. These three authors, however, do rank among the majority of other Neustadt laureates in one important respect: twelve of the nineteen recipients have most clearly been identified as poets, even though--more often than not--these poets have excelled as practitioners of other genres as well. Such details are noteworthy when one considers that the vast majority of the more than two hundred Neustadt jurors have primarily been prose writers.

So can we deduce from this that women and poetry are the big winners of the 2006 Neustadt Prize? Certainly a case could be made for such a claim, if we should even be thinking along gender and genre lines in this regard. Although poetry is gaining popularity and influence among general readers in the United States, few poets in this country share the acclaim and importance that Alegria and her fellow poets have enjoyed in Latin America. In a television interview conducted with Alegria by distinguished PBS journalist and writer Bill Moyers--the edited transcript of which was included in his volume The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets 0995)--he suggests that poetry may well be the enduring genre of the twentieth century. Only time will tell.

At the very least, however, it is safe to say the true winner of the latest installment of the Neustadt Prize was not only Claribel Alegria, but literature itself. For among the 2006 Neustadt jurors--many of whom represented countries other than those of western Europe, the United States, and the Spanish-speaking world--some had never heard of Alegria, let alone read her work before serving as jurors. That is to say, the 2006 jury made its decision based solely on their judgment of the artistic merit of the candidates, without regard to celebrity, media hype, or industry politics. Alegria's winning the Neustadt speaks, first and foremost, as a tribute to her talents as a writer and as a voice for the voiceless in Central America but also to the integrity of the 2006 Neustadt jury and the transparency of the deliberation process.

We are delighted that many of the texts in the special section honoring Alegria (a brief conversation with whom was featured in our January-April 2005 issue) are by panelists who helped celebrate Alegria's visit to the University of Oklahoma during a two-day conference in her honor, which culminated with the Neustadt award banquet. Additional contributions came from others who could not be with us at that time, including a personal homage by the distinguished fiction writer and former vice president of Nicaragua, Sergio Ramirez, who respectfully refers to Alegria as "un tigre con alas" (a winged tiger), a most fitting moniker for her, indeed. Fierce like a tiger in her dedication to her political and artistic aesthetic--and in her love for and commitment to her matria (Nicaragua), patria (El Salvador), fellow writers, feminists, co-revolutionaries, family, friends, and readers--her altruistic convictions soar on the wings of hope in the face of the persistent suffering, injustice, and death that has informed her life.

Other tributes to Alegria and essays about her life and work can be found in the online edition on our website, including appreciations by William Clary, Jose Juan Colin, Judith Doyle, Cesar Ferreira, and W. Nick Hill. We would also like to acknowledge the dedicated service of Professor Colin, who teaches in OU's Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, as the professor of record for the Neustadt course built around Alegria's visit in fall 2006.

Salvadoran journalist and poet Roque Dalton (2935-75) once wrote that "la poesia es como el pan, de todos" (Poetry, like bread, is for everyone). The WLT staff and our university community remain grateful for Alegria's generosity and kindness as she "broke bread" with us here in Norman in the sharing of her poems and her personal insights. Certainly, by honoring her, WLT is doubly honored, as is the Neustadt tradition.