Luis Alberto de Cuenca is a poet, philologist, Hellenist, translator, essayist, columnist, and literary critic; he is the recipient of the National Poetry Prize and a member of the Royal Academy of History. He is also one of the most prominent cultural figures of our time. He has served as president of the Royal Board of Trustees of the National Library of Spain since 2015. Member of the Royal Board of Trustees and the Permanent Commission of the Royal Board of Trustees of the Prado Museum (since 2000). Founder and current director of the ‘Biblioteca de Literatura Universal’. He served as Director General of the National Library of Spain from 1996 to 2000 and as Secretary of State for Culture from 2000 to 2004. As a writer, he has received, among other awards, the Critics’ Prize (1985, for La caja de plata), the National Translation Prize (1989, for his translation of the Cantar de Valtario, a 10th-century Latin epic poem), the Community of Madrid Literature Prize (2006), the ‘Teresa de Ávila’ Prize for Literature (2008), the ‘Julián Marías’ Prize for Research in the Humanities (2013), and the National Prize for Literature (Poetry) in 2015. He is a regular contributor to the daily newspaper ABC as a columnist and literary critic. Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (2004).