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Letter from Vicente Aleixandre

Madrid, June 1951

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I have greatly enjoyed reading your Cortejo y Epinicio. The birth of a genuine poet is a joy for me, and after reading and re-reading this work, which I am told is your first, I am pleased to hail the appearance of a new figure in the poetry of our language, with the characteristics that delineate a distinctive lyrical poet.

Vicente Aleixandre

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Vicente Aleixandre was born in Seville in 1898, and in 1977 became the fourth Spaniard to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Nobel Academy said that it gave him the award "for work, in the tradition of Spanish lyric poetry, which illuminates man's condition in the cosmos and present-day society."