The milkmaid’s story from the finalists of the Aena literary award: “If I win, I’m going to retire” | Culture | EUROtoday

Slightly greater than 24 hours after understanding the winner of essentially the most mentioned occasion within the present panorama of literature in Spanish, the 5 finalists met on the Barcelona Maritime Museum to look earlier than the media. Since it was introduced on the finish of February, the Aena Prize for Hispanic American Fiction has not stopped elevating controversy, as a result of million euros in prize cash (and one other 30,000 for every of the finalists) and, above all, for the truth that it’s promoted by an airport administration firm, 51% owned by the State, particularly by the Ministry of Transportation. Tomorrow, Wednesday, April 8, the winner will probably be introduced at a gala, and till then the finalist writers Héctor Abad Faciolince, Nona Fernández, Marcos Giralt Torrente, Samanta Schweblin and Enrique Vila-Matas have a busy agenda, which incorporates a day go to to President Salvador Illa on the Palau de la Generalitat.

Although it was not made public till later, the 5 finalists have been already chosen when the award was introduced to the press in February. A gaggle of 10 pre-selectors linked to the literary world and from the media introduced a set of works, to which a jury chaired by Rosa Montero and made up of Pilar Adón, Leila Guerriero, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Jorge Fernández Díaz, José Carlos Llop and Elmer Mendoza added extra titles to then select the 5 finalists.

Both the collection of the jury, which tomorrow Wednesday will spend the day assembly for deliberation, in addition to that of the group of preselectors and the bases of the award have been carried out by Álvaro Colomer and María José Solano, each specialists within the literary sector and linked to Gothe journal promoted by the author Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Together with Maurici Lucena, president of Aena, and the occasions firm La Tropa, they’ve been answerable for organizing the whole lot. “We have given ideas, but all the decisions have been collective; being an award with public participation, everything has gone through notaries and lawyers to guarantee that everything is correct from a legal point of view,” explains Colomer in a cellphone name.

According to the author and journalist, he and Solano appeared for names that may symbolize the 2 continents, of various ages and likewise a sure reference to the media, therefore Sergio Vila-Sanjuan (La Vanguardia) and Jesús García Calero (ABC) function secretaries. It was additionally their choice to incorporate the co-official languages ​​“following the method of the FIL of Guadalajara”: they will take part so long as they’re translated into Spanish: “Perhaps later they will consider adding specific awards for literature in those languages,” says Colomer. Another key choice, in accordance with Colomer, is that the jury’s vote, which can happen throughout the gala, will probably be particular person and secret: “My condition for participating was that the entire process be impeccable.”

In the media consideration spherical, the subject has evidently been the controversy over the award, which in accordance with Colomer was foreseeable for many who work within the sector, however not for the organizers, who “have arrived with the hope of patronage and have encountered the pessimism of our little world.” The finalists have resolved the criticism with serenity and even with humor, with out getting into into political points or the general public origin of the cash, and understanding with a sector “accustomed to doubting everything,” stated the Colombian author Héctor Abad Faciolince (creator of the novel Now and within the hour).

Everyone agrees that any visibility technique for literature is nice information. The Madrid native Marcos Giralt (The illusionists) defined that at 58 years outdated he has by no means managed to make a residing from his books or be recognized amongst professors of Spanish literature: “In a small and corrugated world these absurd controversies arise, but out there there is a very wide outside world.” Both Giralt and Abad spoke in regards to the precariousness of the writing career, whereas the Argentinean Samanta Schweblin (The good evil) and the Chilean Nona Fernández (Marciano) emphasised the significance of the transatlantic bridge: “In South America the prizes have been constantly undermined, I have to constantly fight so that they do not disappear,” says Fernández. For his half, the Catalan Enrique Vila-Matas (Camera obscura canon) needed to recollect what in accordance with him is a precedent for this award, Rómulo Gallegos, born in 1964 “with an endowment that at the time was also very high” and key within the consecration of the writers of the growth on each side of the Atlantic, “suffered with political problems, but I have been informed by the artificial intelligence that continues to occur.”

Controversy apart, a number of the finalist writers confessed to having obtained the announcement with out having learn the information in regards to the creation of the award, resembling Abad Faciolince or Fernández. Giralt, for his half, knew in regards to the prize and “had fantasized about winning it.” Schweblin proudly said that his colleagues verify that it’s a “serious and literary” award and Vila-Matas was glad and pleased with the record of names.

Although the thought is that this jury modifications yearly, Colomer isn’t clear if this would be the case. In reality, each Colomer and María Gómez, Aena’s communications director, current on the press convention, chorus from answering something agency about future editions, topic to any political change. According to Gómez, the thought is to take care of the annual name round Sant Jordi and at all times for revealed works, sustaining the quantity of the prize. The organizer doesn’t specify whether or not it should at all times be in Barcelona and factors out that it’s not written wherever that the identical creator can’t obtain the award greater than as soon as for various works.

On the opposite hand, it’s not but clear what is going to occur to the copies of the 5 finalists that Aena promised to purchase, though it appears that evidently it is going to be carried out straight with the publishers (Alfaguara within the case of Abad, Random House in that of Fernández, Seix Barral in that of Vila-Matas and Schweblin, and Anagrama in that of Giralt).

And what is going to the finalists do with the million? Abad recites the poem The milkmaid by Félix María de Samaniego (“Do not be ambitious / of better or more prosperous fortune, / that you will live anxiously / without anything being able to satisfy you”) and desires: “If I win, I am going to retire”; Fernández desires a dishwasher, Giralt a mobile phone, Schweblin a gradual wage. And everybody, time to learn and write.