Havana, March 15 (RHC) --The 2020 José Antonio Fernández de Castro Cultural Journalism Award has been presented to journalist, editor, cultural promoter and art critic, Basilia Paspamatíu. The ceremony was held over the weekend at the National Library Theater with the attendance of Cuban Culture Minister, Alpidio Alonso, and Cuban Journalist Association President, Ricardo Ronquillo.

Paspamatíu received the award from Deputy Culture Minister, Fernando Rojas, in recognition of her career and systematic dedication to intelligent journalism. ‘Awards like this exalt the work of people like Basilia,’ said the President of the Cuban Journalist Association, adding that she has had an extraordinary career in Cuban revolutionary journalism, left her birth country, came to Cuba and devoted herself to the cause of the Cuban Revolution.

Basilia Paspamatíu has dedicated sixty years to cultural journalism. At the age of seventeen, she, who is the current deputy director of La Letra del Escriba publication, published articles in the cultural supplement of the Argentine newspaper La Razón and the Uruguayan magazine Deslinde. She also worked as a cultural journalist in the magazine Airón since her graduation from the Philosophy and Letters School of Argentina’s National University.  At the end of 1969, Basilia Paspamatíu settled in Havana and joined Prensa Latina news agency until she became the editor of its monthly magazine Cuba Internacional. From the pages of the Juventud Rebelde newspaper where he worked for ten years, she promoted a whole generation of poets while promoting literary criticism in the Cuban press.

Her commendable cultural promotion work has made her worthy of the National Culture Order; the Antonio Briones Montoto medal, First Degree, awarded by the State Council and signed by Fidel Castro; the Majahonda medal, awarded by the Cuban Writers and Artists Association –UNEAC-, the AHS Commemorative Medal; and the National Artistic Critics Award. Paspamatíu has been the general coordinator of the Julio Cortázar Latin American short story award since it was set up 19 years ago and of the literary café Aire de luz since 2002. For more than half a century, she has collaborated with publications, such as Granma, Granma Internacional, the literary supplement El Tintero from the newspaper Juventud Rebelde, as well as the cultural magazines Revolución y Cultura, Unión, La Gaceta de Cuba, La Jiribilla, Casa de las Américas and El Caimán Barbudo.