The Planeta Prize no longer fits in the museum. The grand Oval Room of the MNAC has become too small, and in its 75th edition, presided over by Their Majesties the King and Queen, it has moved to Pavilion 1 of the Fira de Barcelona to host its most crowded gala and make another impact with the great lady of Hispanic-American literature, Isabel Allende, who has won the one million euros of the award with the second part of The House of the Spirits, the bestseller she published in 1982. Meanwhile, the young philologist and screenwriter Sergio Hernández has been named a finalist, receiving 200,000 euros for a book that speculates about a plot to assassinate Antonio Machado.
"I did not expect this, and even less to see everyone standing, what a great emotion," said a visibly moved Allende, after a long applause from the entire audience. In another record-breaking year, her work has prevailed over 1,424 manuscripts, a number that sets a new participation milestone.
"45 years ago, I wrote The House of the Spirits, which ends with the granddaughter of the patriarch Esteban Trueba writing the story of her family. Alba has been arrested, tortured, raped, mutilated, but they have not been able to take away her dignity," highlighted Allende, who now continues her story in The Hour Before Dawn.
Set in the harsh years of the Chilean dictatorship, the novel begins when Alba, who has been imprisoned and tortured, returns to the family home... pregnant. Narrated in the third person but sometimes switching to the first, The Hour Before Dawn emerges as a voice against oppression: the protagonist goes from being a victim gripped by fear and pain to the chronicler of a tumultuous era. "The issue is in the air... Now I see so many democracies threatened by authoritarianism, extreme nationalism, and even fascism... I feel the fear that forced me to leave my country after the military coup of 1973," she pointed out.
Planeta once again surprises the publishing world by betting on a respected bestselling author, who has written over 30 books translated into more than 40 languages. And who has sold a whopping over 77 million copies worldwide. An author who was previously published by Penguin Random House and now joins the Planeta team, adding another accolade to her already extensive list of awards, including the National Literature Prize of Chile or, more recently, the Barcino Historical Literature Award granted by the Barcelona City Council.
On the other hand, the Valencian Sergio Hernández has been named a finalist with The Longing, a book that speculates about an assassination attempt on the poet Antonio Machado. A philologist and screenwriter, Hernández has published several graphic novels under the Planeta Comic label (Backhome, Hysteria or the adaptation of I Am Legend), a book of short stories, and the novel The Wounded Letter. "My father was a bookseller for many years, and I know firsthand what this award means, I grew up with it," acknowledged an emotional Hernández, who with The Longing takes a leap in scale and projection.
"Two years ago, we were also in Barcelona for the 75th anniversary of the Planeta group, which has decisively contributed to enriching our cultural landscape and giving it international projection," welcomed the gala King Felipe VI, with a few words in Catalan. The monarch highlighted the "solidity and rootedness" of the award in his speech, before a diverse representation of the cultural, business, and political worlds, with the presence of Minister Ernest Urtasun, President Salvador Illa, Mayor Jaume Collboni, and the President of the Constitutional Court, Cándido Conde-Pumpido.
The Planeta Prize remains the most generously endowed award in the world, surpassing the Nobel, although this year it faces competition from the AENA Narrative Prize, which has emerged in the literary scene with a super check for a work already published, instead of unpublished. However, the Planeta Prize is a well-established tradition on the calendar: it is celebrated every October 15 in homage to María Teresa Bosch's namesake, wife of editor José Manuel Lara, who founded the award in a distant 1952 to promote Spanish writers. "There is much to celebrate! 75 years of history are many. The award was born with a dual vocation: to give maximum exposure at a time when books were not widely seen and to help authors dedicate themselves to writing and make a living from literature," emphasized José Creuheras, president of the Planeta group and the Atresmedia corporation.
Over these 75 years, the Planeta Prize has sold 47 million books, representing an impressive average of nearly 625,000 volumes per edition: practically every Spanish household has a Planeta book on the shelf. And the Allende effect, multiplied by the appeal of the second part of The House of the Spirits, could further boost those figures.
In this anniversary gala, the publisher wanted to review the extensive history of an award won by illustrious authors such as Ana María Matute ("it was a bombshell to give it to a woman much younger," recalled the writer in an emotional video, the first woman to receive it in 1954), but also Terenci Moix, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Jorge Semprún... Interestingly, the two authors who would also later win a Nobel Prize consecutively won the Planeta Prize: Mario Vargas Llosa in 1993 (awarded by the Swedish Academy in 2010) and Camilo José Cela in 1994, who had already received the Nobel five years earlier and remains the last Spaniard to receive it.
Another peculiarity of the Planeta Prize is that many of the winning authors end up returning as jury members: this year, newcomers Paloma Sánchez Garnica and Javier Sierra have joined the team formed by Carmen Posadas, Luz Gabás, Pere Gimferrer, Eva Giner and Planeta's editorial director, Belén López. As spokesperson, Luz Gabás posed a conclusion drawn from the manuscripts of this record-breaking edition, yet another one: "Since literature is constantly inspired by life, in what times do we live if all the finalist novels emphasize the desire to find peace and the need for healing?" The answer, always in books.