THE ALFAGUARA NOVEL PRIZE CELEBRATES ITS 17TH EDITION, coinciding with Alfaguara's 50th Anniversary

USA - English

• Latin America - español

MIAMI, Oct. 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Since being founded in 1964, Alfaguara has supported Spanish literature and Latin America, building a two-way street for published works on either side of the Atlantic, and it was with this vision that the Alfaguara Novel Prize was born. The prize has subsequently established itself as a benchmark for quality literary awards given to an unpublished work written in Spanish. Its prestige throughout the Spanish-speaking world means that winning works enjoy international distribution, reaching over 400 million Spanish-speakers. The winner is published simultaneously in Spain, Latin America and the U.S., as well as being concurrently distributed in 19 Spanish-speaking countries.

Successive Alfaguara prizewinners have been translated into various languages and have garnered top reviews in the international arena. Further prizes awarded to these works only serve to validate the literary quality of the winning entries. The 2009 winner, El viajero del siglo, by Andres Neuman, was bestowed the Literary Critic's Award a year later in Spain and its English-language edition, published in the United Kingdom by Pushkin Press, was selected as one of the best novels of 2012 by the Financial Times, The Guardian and The Independent. El ruido de las cosas al caer, by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (Alfaguara Novel Prize 2011), was awarded the Gregor von Rezzori Prize, given to the best foreign novel translated to Italian; it was also a finalist of the prestigious Medicis and Femina awards. In addition to these, both novels were shortlisted for the prestigious 2012 Independent Fiction Prize awarded by British newspaper The Independent and the Arts Council of England. Santiago Roncagliolo's Abril rojo (Alfaguara Novel Prize of 2006) was the recipient of this important award in 2011.

A Widely Translated Prize

The success of the Alfaguara Prize has spread far beyond the borders of Spain, as evidenced by the fact that all the winning works have been translated into other languages. El ruido de las cosas al caer, by Juan Gabriel Vasquez, has been sold to publishers of stature such as Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Riverhead in the United States, Seuil in France and Ponte alle Grazie in Italy. These last two publishers have also purchased the rights to Leopoldo Brizuela's 2012 winner, Una misma noche. Hernan Rivera Letelier's El arte de la resurreccion, has been purchased by over ten international publishers, of which stand out Mondadori in Italy and Signa­tuur in the Netherlands. Renowned Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the United States, among others, has published El viajero del siglo by Andres Neuman. Mira si yo te querre by Luis Leante (Alfaguara Prize 2007) has been one of the works to enjoy wider international popularity; do date, the rights to this work have been sold to twenty countries, among them the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, China, Korea, France, Italy, and Russia.

Laura Restrepo, President of the Jury

The Alfaguara Prize boasts an exceptional jury made up of writers and salient figures in the cultural scene. This year, author Laura Restrepo will preside the 17^th edition of the Alfaguara Novel Prize. The conformation of the rest of the jury will not be made public until the moment the winner is announced.

Laura Restrepo (Bogota, 1950) published her first book, Historia de un entusiasmo, in 1986 (Aguilar, 2005), followed by La Isla de la Pasion (1989; Alfaguara, 2005), Leopardo al sol (1993; Alfaguara, 2005), Dulce compania (1995; Alfaguara, 2005), La novia oscura (1999; Alfaguara; 2005), La multitud errante (2001), Olor a rosas invisibles (2002; Alfaguara, 2008), Delirio (Alfaguara Novel Prize 2004), Demasiados heroes (Alfaguara, 2009) and Hot sur (2013). Her novels have been translated to more than twenty languages and have received several distinctions, among them the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize, awarded to a novel written by a female author; in 2004, the 2004 Alfaguara Novel Prize; in 1998, the Prix France Culture, given to the best foreign novel published in France; in 2003, the Arzobispo Juan de Sanclemente Prize; and, in 2006, the Grinzane Cavour Prize, given to the best foreign novel published in Italy. She won a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 2006, and is currently teaching at Cornell University in the United States.

Since its first edition in 1998, the Alfaguara Prize has been presided over by: Carlos Fuentes, Eduardo Mendoza, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Antonio Munoz Molina, Jorge Semprun, Luis Mateo Diez, Jose Saramago, Jose Manuel Caballero Bonald, Angeles Mastretta, Mario Vargas Llosa, Sergio Ramirez, Luis Goytisolo, Manuel Vicent, Bernardo Atxaga, Rosa Montero, and Manuel Rivas.

Winners of the Alfaguara Novel Prize

1998 – Eliseo Alberto, Caracol Beach and Sergio Ramirez, Margarita, esta linda la mar | 1999 – Manuel Vicent, Son de mar | 2000 – Clara Sanchez, Ultimas noticias del paraiso | 2001 – Elena Poniatowska, La piel del cielo | 2002 – Tomas Eloy Martinez, El vuelo de la reina | 2003 – Xavier Velasco, Diablo guardian | 2004 – Laura Restrepo, Delirio | 2005 – Graciela Montes and Ema Wolf, El turno del escriba | 2006 – Santiago Roncagliolo, Abril rojo | 2007 – Luis Leante, Mira si yo te querre | 2008 – Antonio Orlando Rodriguez, Chiquita | 2009 – Andres Neuman, El viajero del siglo | 2010 – Hernan Rivera Letelier, El arte de la resurreccion | 2011 – Juan Gabriel Vasquez, El ruido de las cosas al caer |2012 – Leopoldo Brizuela, Una misma noche| 2013 – Jose Ovejero, La invencion del amor.

SOURCE Santillana USA Publishing