Rosa Navarro Durán by Javierfresan. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (accessed: February 7, 2022).
Rosa Navarro Durán
, b. 1947
Rosa Navarro Durán is a philologist and Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Barcelona. Navarro was born in Figueras, a town located in the Gerona province, Catalonia, in 1947. She has enjoyed a long and distinguished career, making important contributions to the study of Spanish Literature, Classics and Education.*
For more than 30 years, Navarro has published extensively on Classics-related topics and has adapted classical texts for children. In 1996, she published the book, ¿Por qué hay que leer los clásicos?, which examines why classical texts should be read in the modern age. Meanwhile, she has also strongly advocated for their adaptation. As she highlighted,** these texts are widely recognised as important but few can access them because of cultural and language barriers. For Edebé's Classics Told to Children Collection, Navarro wrote 13 adaptations of classical texts for children, including La Ilíada (2018), and La Odisea Contada a los Niños (2007). These books were illustrated by Francesc Rovira.
Throughout her career, Navarro has held a number of distinguished positions in organisations and committees related to education. Between 2001 and 2005, she was the coordinator of Philology and Philosophy for Administración Nacional de Educación Pública (ANEP). Then, between 2005 and 2009, she was the president of the Humanities Commission for teacher evaluation for La Agencia Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad y Acreditación (ANECA). ANECA is the governmental body which is responsible for the planning and regulation of the Spanish education system. Subsequently, until 2014, she was a member of the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency's (AQU) Commision for the Evaluation of Research in Humanities.
For 19 years, Professor Navarro was on the panel for several prestigious awards. Between 2001 and 2020, she was on the panel for the "Princess of Asturias and Cervantes Awards". The Foundation honours individuals and organisations for their achievements in Public Affairs, Science, or Humanities. At the same time, she was also on the panel for the Edebé prize for Youth Literature. Between 2008 and 2020, she was also a panelist for the Gerardo Diego Prize for literary research.
In 2019, she was awarded the International Jovellanos Essay Prize for her work, Secretos a voz, which was first published in 1994 and celebrated its 25th edition in 2019.
* Fresán, Javier, "Rosa Navarro Durán. De la mano del Lazarillo", Revista Clarín, 2008, p. 38 (accessed: June 20, 2021).
** Navarro Durán, Rosa, "¿Por qué adaptar a los clásicos?", Revista TK, núm. 18, 2006, 17.
Sources:
Author's profile on Edebe Group (accessed: August 12, 2021).
Author's profile on Wayback Machine (accessed: August 12, 2021).
Bio prepared by Lisa Dunbar Solas, independent researcher, drlisasolas@ancientexplorer.com.au
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