The World’s Highest Paid Literary Award Fails Its LXXI Edition With Record Participation
In its seventy-first edition, the Planet, the world’s best-paid literary prize, sets another record for participation. A total of 846 works were awarded for the prize this year, of which one million euros for the winner and 200,000 for the finalist. There are nine novels that have passed through the sieve. The authors dream of winning the Millionaire Prize, which will be awarded this Saturday, October 15, Saint Teresa’s Day, during the traditional literary evening at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC).
Six of the nine finalists compete under a pseudonym in an edition without groups or rumors about possible winners. Certainly, two of them will take over from Carmen Mola -Jorge Díaz, Agustín Martínez and Antonio Mercero-, and Paloma Sánchez-Garnica, winners and finalist of the last edition.
For José Creuheras, President of Grupo Planeta, the prize maintains its objective of “discovering readers”. “Every year they go up and 44 million copies of the price have already been sold, a milestone that means a lot to us,” he said.
This year, the historical novel and the ‘thriller’ dominate among the 846 originals sent to the prize, said Juan Eslava Galán, member and spokesperson for the jury. There are only nine finalists instead of ten, following the elimination of a work already self-published on a digital platform, something expressly forbidden by the pricing rules and discovered at the last minute. “They have to be original and this one wasn’t,” Creuheras said.
For example, novels with themes of “costume and civil war” are declining and there is a greater presence of the social novel, “studying the enormous changes in today’s society and those related to the empowerment of women,” according to Eslava Galán.
The finalists are ‘El avionazo, una historia de Frida y Marilyn’, by José Manuel Mata Muñoz; ‘Feathers and sand’, by Álex Oneida (pseudonym); ‘Magdalena, the gaze of the heart’, by Ho Hanan (pseudonym) and ‘My wife’s lover’, by Gabriela Hausmann (pseudonym); ‘More Than Seven Thousand Miles’, by Alma Browncross (pseudonym); ‘The City of Illusions’, by Manuel Millán Sánchez; ‘River Above’, by Hoja de Fresno (pseudonym); ‘The Fuehrer’s weaknesses. History of a Breed: German Shepherds’, by Iñaki Carrera (pseudonym), and ‘El harpista’, by David Galindo Martínez.
The jury for this edition consists of José Manuel Blecua, Fernando Delgado, Juan Eslava Galán, Pere Gimferrer, Carmen Posadas, Rosa Regàs and Belén López, director of Editorial Planeta and who acts as secretary without the right to vote.
Creuheras applauded the good health of the publishing industry and expected that despite the difficulties and inflation, disproportionate increases in book prices would not be expected. “We are below the 5% increase, which seems to me to be a major effort from the publishing industry,” said Grupo Planeta’s chairman, who also highlighted the increase in readership. “Read on. 66% of Spaniards do it regularly, mostly concentrated with the young audience. We’re creating a pool of readers and that’s good news,” he boasted.
Some data is confirmed by the figures of Jesús Badenes, director of the Grupo Planeta Book Area. “The book has been consolidated in all countries around us, with growth between 15 and 20 percent, in Spain at 16 percent,” he said. “We are facing a consolidated sector with growth typical of emerging industries. Our reading index, of 66%, still has a long way to go”, Badenes, who repeated it again as Creuheras, assured the “welcome to the cultural bonus”.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
