Mónica Rodríguez, National Prize for Children's and Young Adult Literature 2024 for 'Umiko' | Culture | EUROtoday

The Asturian author Mónica Rodríguez has been awarded the 2024 National Prize for Children's and Young People's Literature for Umiko (Diego Pun Ediciones), illustrated by Daniel Piquera Fisk. The prize, awarded by the Ministry of Culture, is endowed with 30,000 euros. The jury has highlighted Umiko for “the sound, the mastery of the registers and the beauty of the story in this particular universe brilliantly constructed through exhaustive research and documentation. For its ability to connect with the audience it is aimed at and to which it welcomes and captivates from the beginning,” in a press release issued by Culture.

The jury underlines the “the exceptional narrative quality that houses an original, evocative and dynamic story with the scent of the sea.” And he acknowledges “Rodríguez’s literary ability to give soul to her work through her characters, with clear intergenerational references between women, and for the rich personality of her protagonist, who must discover herself at the moment in life when existential concerns usually surface.” “Writer and illustrator have achieved a perfect assembly —in a book that is also an exquisite object— to show us the Japanese breath that comes from Umiko, an oceanic world inhabited by ama, women who practice the traditional profession of divers,” the assertion continued.

Umiko is an illustrated novel for younger individuals, centred on a younger girl, “daughter and granddaughter of Japanese divers, a traditional profession that is passed down from mothers to daughters”, because the synopsis on the writer’s web site summarises. “Like her friends, she does not want to follow tradition, spending long hours in the icy waters of the ocean and running the dangers of the seabed. Despite this, she feels an irresistible attraction to the underwater world, which is accentuated when she meets the lighthouse keeper’s nephew, Sasuke, a teenager from Tokyo, with whom she experiences her first love. This love and the ocean are intertwined with the story of her ancestor Ishi, one of the best divers, who disappeared at sea shortly after World War II. The old diver Kairi, her grandmother Chinami and the rest of the divers will gradually reveal to her the secrets of the sacred and magical world of female divers”, provides the synopsis.

“The National Literature Prize in the category of Children's and Young Adult Literature will recognize a work written in this literary genre by a Spanish author, written in any of the official Spanish languages ​​published in Spain in its first edition, between January 1 and December 31, 2023, which has met the legal requirements established for its dissemination,” reads the foundations of the award. Hence, solely the author is awarded, even though illustration has a really outstanding relevance in Umiko. The Ministry of Culture's assertion doesn’t even point out the identify of the illustrator, Daniel Piquera Fisk, though the ministry additionally awards a National Prize for Illustration.

The award recognised Patxi Zubizarreta in its final version, becoming a member of an extended listing of winners, together with Rafael Salmerón, Beatriz Giménez de Ory, Raimon Portell i Rifà, Juan Kruz Igerabide and Ledicia Costas, amongst others.

Mónica Rodríguez was born in Oviedo in 1969 and, regardless of her career, she has a level in Physics and a grasp's diploma in Nuclear Energy. She labored for 15 years on the Centre for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research (Ciemat). She printed her first youngsters's e book in 2003 and left her job at Ciemat in 2009 to commit herself to youngsters's and younger grownup literature. She has printed greater than sixty books and has obtained, amongst others, the Cervantes Chico Prize for kids's and younger grownup literature for her profession in 2018, the María Elvira Muñiz 2021 Award from the Gijón Book Fair, additionally for her profession, the Edebé Prize for kids's literature and the Kiriko Prize awarded by impartial youngsters's literature bookstores within the younger grownup novel class in 2022 and the Barco de Vapor Prize in 2023.