During his recent visit to Puerto Rico, Luis García Montero, director of Spain’s Cervantes Institute, announced that the University of Puerto Rico would now be home to a new Cervantes Chair of the institution, the second in the world, after the one in Edinburgh, Scotland.
García Montero described the inauguration as “another great step” for “common learning, collaboration, and strengthening ties with Spanish-speaking countries.”
The agreement was signed in late September with the rector of the University of Puerto Rico-Ríos Piedras Campus (UPRRP), Angélica Varela Llavona, creating the Cervantes Chair, which will be directed by the Puerto Rican writer Luis Rafael Sánchez. “This chair means a lot and we understood its importance immediately. On the one hand, the recognition of great names that make our culture, like Luis Rafael Sánchez, but also the importance of the University of Puerto Rico, its quality and reference,” said the director of Cervantes.
The new professor was grateful to be part of this “transatlantic adventure,” while noting that it is the first to be created in Latin America. “My heart, overflowing with honorable and contented puertorriqueñidad, is grateful,” he added.
For her part, Angélica Varela described it as an “immense honor” to host this new chair: “This confirms the place of our university on the international map of Spanish studies, while reinforcing our commitment to academic and cultural excellence.”
