The Dulce Chacón literary prize, which has been awarded for 20 years by the Zafra City Council (Badajoz), will lose the illustrious name of the Extremaduran writer, who died in 2003. Tonight, the mayor of Zafra, Juan Carlos Fernández, of the Popular Party , you will receive a letter informing you of the family’s decision. The letter, to which EL PAÍS has had access, is signed by Dolores Alonso Chacón, María Chacón Alonso and Eduardo Alonso Chacón, “as children and heirs of Dulce Chacón and Mrs. Inmaculada Chacón Gutiérrez, as testamentary and literary executor by Dulce Chacón.” The latter, Inma Chacón, also a writer and sister of Dulce (Zafra 1954- Madrid, 2003), responds by telephone to this newspaper: “The mayor has unilaterally changed the bases of the award without consulting the family and has distorted the spirit of the award ”.
The controversy is rooted in the council’s elimination of the values of “dignity, solidarity and justice” and the suppression of the popular and expert jury. “We understand that, by eliminating the third basis of the award that we gave permission to bear our mother’s name, the spirit with which the award was born is being eliminated, since in said annulled basis it is specified that the jury must not only assess the literary quality of the selected works, but must also take into account their human content, so that they are linked to principles such as dignity, justice and solidarity, thereby trying to associate the award with the life and aesthetic trajectory of Dulce Chacón,” says the letter that the mayor will receive.
The heirs began to consider separating themselves from the award on May 28, when they found out about the modification of the rules. Then, they issued a manifesto in which they criticized the actions of the Consistory. Dolores, María and Eduardo, children of Chacón, lead the 300 signatories, the majority linked to the world of culture.
From that day on, a mediation was attempted in which Isabel María Pérez, president of the Association of Writers of Extremadura, and José Luis Gil Soto, current president of the jury of the Dulce Chacón Prize, participated. The result was unsuccessful. What ended up breaking relations was an article written by the mayor in the magazine The messenger. In the text, Juan Carlos Fernández defends his decision to modify the award, endowed with 9,000 euros: “If the awards have a father, by law of life the children are emancipated. If an award is called, organized and paid for (with financing from other administrations, of course) by the City Council, it is the City Council who has the power to organize it. And, obviously, the legal representative of the City Council, who is elected by the people.”
The mayor’s letter states: “I have eliminated the popular jury, it seems. Well, you should know that this jury was not included in the rules.” The family responds: “It is true that the participation of the popular jury was not included in the rules of the previous calls for the award, an issue that could have been resolved by including its regulation in the call for which Mr. Fernández Calderón has modified the rules. But it is also true that the award has always had absolute transparency, which has never been questioned.”
The mayor underlines the legitimacy of his jury by revealing that one of the members is one of Dulce Chacón’s nine brothers. “At no time have we questioned the jury chosen for the Dulce Chacón Award. Furthermore, as the mayor emphasizes in his writing, one of Dulce Chacón’s brothers is on said jury and, for us, it was a great joy to know that he had been counted on to participate in the award that bears the name of our mother. What we have expressed, in the manifesto that we have signed demanding that the bases of the award for which we granted consent to bear the name of Dulce Chacón, be restored, is our disagreement with the elimination of the popular jury and the jury of experts. As the mayor knows very well, the popular vote was about making all Zafren residents participate in an Award that raises the name of Zafra at an international level.”
Regarding the inclusion of one of the writer’s brothers, Inma Chacón responded to this newspaper: “As far as I know, that member of the jury has not spoken out about the conflict.” And she added: “If the bases return to those that were laid to preserve my mother’s spirit, we will have no problem in naming the award.” Something that is far away at the moment if we stick to what was written by the mayor: “Those who want to return to the authentic Dulce Chacón award, I must say that this sense of ownership does not seem very orthodox to me. But, in any case, you always have the possibility of organizing, financing and announcing the prize. I will not be the one to prevent it, far from it.