It was a few minutes before seven in the evening, and about ten people were queuing outside number 4 Barquillo Street in Madrid, where one of the entrances to the Cervantes Institute is located. They waited impatiently, yet confidently, to enter the tribute in memory of the poet Joan Margarit, now five years after his death. In the room that hosted the event, only a few chairs reserved for the press remained empty. "Joan had an astonishing knack for cultivating friendships," said the master of ceremonies, journalist and family friend Pepa Fernández. This sentiment was echoed throughout the tribute by the other figures from the world of culture and literature who contributed their own words, beginning with the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luís García Montero.

The Canadian writer Margaret Atwood (Ottawa, 1939) has been recognized with the Joan Margarit International Poetry Prize. Atwood is the author of a notable body of poetry, with books such as the anthology Paper boat (2024), and is also a prestigious narrative voice with novels such as The Handmaid's Tale (1985).

“És l’alegria la que em mou a escriure.

I liked to write to him so as not to bother him on the phone when I knew his strength was failing and that rotund voice was cracking. He preferred to call me, on Saturday or Sunday, so as not to bother me at work: "You're still living in the middle of it all and I'm an old man," he would say with the coquetry of someone who has corrected galley proofs to the last breath of what he defined as "the best of my books," written during lockdown.

"Poetry is a very powerful instrument of consolation," said the poet Joan Margarit in December, at his home in Sant Just Desvern. Severely ill, Margarit said in this conversation that he was preparing his last book, Animal de bosc [Woods animal], which he would like to present "when the world had left the pandemic behind". It will not be possible: the author died this Tuesday at midday of lymph cancer at the age of 82. "You write to go deep inside yourself," he said at the time, coinciding with the awarding of the Cervantes Prize, a year after the announcement. What you find inside you is also inside others. By writing about the truth of my inner self, I realised that I was consoling the reader. Despite his illness, Margarit continued to seek solace in poetry until the last moment. Now it is his numerous readers who will have to turn to the author's verses to rediscover his serene, courageous and consoling voice.