Álvaro Pombo wins the Francisco Umbral award for the best book of 2023

The novel Santander, 1936 published by Anagrama in January 2023, it has been chosen as the best book of the year that has just ended by the jury of the Francisco Umbral award. For the first time in the history of this award, endowed with 12,000 euros, the decision, in this 13th edition, has been unanimous. Álvaro Pombo (Santander, 84 years old) starts from a true story starring his uncle and his grandfather to build an “exceptional novel, against the current, that shows the high literature and the sensitivity of which it is capable,” according to the jury. .

The months prior to the outbreak of the Civil War in the city of Santander and its outbreak in the summer of 1936 are the framework of this story in which the affection between a father with republican ideas and a son affiliated with the phalanx. María España, widow of Francisco Umbral and president of the Foundation that bears his name, has communicated the news to the writer and academic, “an author loved by Paco, for many reasons, for his originality, because Pombo's writing never falls into the “expected, always surprising,” according to the press release of the award decision. Pombo, for his part, was happy to receive the news—“for me the Umbral is a more important award than the Cervantes”—and recalled an article that the writer and journalist dedicated to him four decades ago entitled 'Pombísimo'.

The meeting of the jury, chaired by Manuel Llorente, was held this Thursday at the foundation's headquarters, located in the Francisco Umbral municipal library in Majadahonda, whose town council contributes to the award. The journalists Juan Cruz, Luis Alemany and Andrea Aguilar; professors Fanny Rubio and Santos Sanz de Villanueva; former minister César Antonio Molina; Carlos Fernández Aganzo vice president of the Vocento Foundation, Fernando R. Lafuente of the Ortega Funcación and Carlos Fernández Aganzo of the Francisco Umbral Foundation have made up the jury this year. The list of winners in previous editions includes Pilar Adón (2022), Santos Juliá (2017), Fernando Aramburu (2016) and Mario Vargas Llosa (2019). The award ceremony, which includes a sculpture designed by Alberto Corazón, is scheduled for the month of February.