Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2010, ahead of the 22 October 2010 ceremony. Ages and present-tense descriptions refer to 2010. The awards were renamed the Princess of Asturias Awards in 2014.
On 22 October, these seven winners will receive the Prince of Asturias Awards:
1. Prince of Asturias Award for Sports
Spain’s national football team. Led by Vicente del Bosque, the team made a Spanish dream come true at a time when the country needed it, in the middle of the crisis.
2. Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research
Baruch Minke. A 70-year-old neurobiologist. He is currently deep in the work of discovering why human beings feel pain, which is why he is known as the man who will take our pain away.
3. Prince of Asturias Award for Literature
Amin Maalouf. Originally from Lebanon, 61 years old. He is known as the writer without a homeland because he had to leave his country during the civil war. Amin Maalouf works for understanding between the Muslim and Western communities.
4. Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities
Alain Touraine. An 85-year-old French sociologist. His wife fell ill with cancer, and that helped him see the world differently. He has spent his whole life studying our society and how it changes: behaviour, progress and so on.
5. Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation
Rafael Matesanz. This medical doctor shares the award with The Transplantation Society and is, in a way, the person responsible for medical progress in Spain, above all in organ transplants. According to Matesanz, everything except the brain can be transplanted.
6. Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts
Richard Serra. The 70-year-old sculptor is known today as the man of steel, and experts consider him the greatest living sculptor.
7. Prince of Asturias Award for Concord
Manos Unidas. Represented by its president, Myriam García, the NGO Manos Unidas is a leading force in the fight against hunger around the world.
Featured image: Jl FilpoC, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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