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Gelman, 77, the third son of Russian Jewish immigrants, is considered Argentina's poet laureate and once belonged to the Montoneros, a leftist guerrilla group that fought the Argentina juntas that ruled in the 1970s and 80s.
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MADRID (EJP)---Argentinian Jewish poet Juan Gelman, who suffered wrenching personal loss under his country's military dictatorship, has received the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary honor.
Spain's King Juan Carlos gave Gelman on Wednesday a medal symbolizing the prize at a ceremony at the university of Alcala De Henares, the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the author of "Don Quixote."
Gelman, 77, the third son of Russian Jewish immigrants, is considered Argentina's poet laureate and once belonged to the Montoneros, a leftist guerrilla group that fought the Argentina juntas that ruled in the 1970s and 80s.
He lived in Europe until 1988, when he returned to Argentina and began working for the Buenos Aires newspaper Pagina 12.
In his acceptance speech, Gelman said that after being forced into exile in Europe he cringed over the dictatorship's cruelty.
"I died many times, and more with each piece of news of a murdered or missing friend or colleague," said Gelman.
Gelman's prolific work in a 50-year career addresses his Jewish heritage, the concept of family and his experiences as a political activist.
In 1976, during the Argentinian dictatorship, Gelman's son Marcelo and daughter-in-law Maria Claudia were kidnapped and killed. They became two of the countless "desaparecidos", the people who vanished without a trace during the military regime.
Gelman spent years tracking down a granddaughter born of that marriage and reared in adoption in neighboring Uruguay.
It is one of Argentina's most famous cases of babies being born to political dissidents, taken from their mothers and given up for adoption.
Gelman met his granddaughter Macarena for the first time in 2000. When she learned the poet was her grandfather, she changed her last name to Gelman.