The forty-second edition of the Herralde novel prize, organized by Editorial Anagrama and endowed with 25,000 euros, has brought as a novelty the ex aequo granting of the award to two authors, one Latin American and the other Spanish, after declaring the contest void in 2022 alleging the lack of consensus among the jury.
This year, however, the jury composed of Aldo García (Antonio Machado bookstore, Madrid), Gonzalo Pontón Gijón, Marta Sanz, Juan Pablo Villalobos and the editor Silvia Sesé has chosen to award at the same time the Chilean Cynthia Rimsky and the Xita Rubert from Barcelona, for her novels clear and confusing and The Key Biscayne Facts.
The jury initially selected seven novels from among the 1,149 submitted for this award in a first round, to finally settle on two titles that had to decide the winning work and the finalist. But the decision has gone in the direction of awarding the two novels equally and awarding the prize to both.
‘Clear and Confusing’ by Cynthia Rimsky
The first of the awarded works is clear and confusing by Cynthia Rimsky. The work relates the vicissitudes of a plumber in love, in a dependent and tortuous way, with an artist, Clara, and in turn immersed in the corruption of the plumbers’ union to which he has just joined. In the words of Juan Pablo Villalobos, it is “an avant-garde romantic comedy” that leads us to ask a series of fundamental questions: “What is art? What is your mission? What is love? What is the potential of popular art?”
For his part, Gonzalo Pontón Gijón stands out clear and confusing that “sets up a world of provinces as extravagant as the pipes that its protagonist takes care of, faithful and long-suffering in love with a conceptual artist who is a heroine of denial.” And Marta Sanz assures that “it has been a long time since I had so much fun reflecting on the tragic and laughable state of literature.”
Cynthia Rimsky (Santiago de Chile, 1962) lives in Argentina, where she is a professor at the National University of the Arts of Buenos Aires and the Writing Diploma at the Valparaíso Catholic University. He has received the Gabriela Mistral Literary Games Award in 1994, the Santiago Municipal Award in 2001 for Remaining postin 2017 by The future is a strange place and in 2021 by The fingertip revolutionas well as the Best Literary Work Award from the National Council of Culture in Chile in 2017 for The future is a strange place and the Award for Best Literary Work from the National Council of Culture in 2023 for the novel Yomuri.
‘The Facts of Key Biscayne’ by Xita Rubert
The other award-winning work is The Key Biscayne Factsby Xita Rubert, which, according to Anagrama, is “a mystery novel and a book about the ambivalences of affection and memory.” The publisher also defines it as “a tender, hilarious and disturbing narrative in equal parts that confirms the power of an unclassifiable author.”
For his part, Gonzalo Pontón Gijón has defined it as “a rarefied story of adolescent desires processed by an adult mind.” Marta Sanz highlights that the novel is “a prodigious story about vicarious violence in times when it was not yet known how to name it” and adds: “Xita Rubert does it with a disturbing style that illuminates the side of the most sympathetic, cultured and loving: the dark light that would feed even Atticus Finch.”
Finally, Juan Pablo Villalobos defines it as “a sticky novel in many ways: because of the heat of a Florida populated by eccentric characters, both endearing and exasperating; for the humid atmosphere in which the protagonist, a teenager fascinated with her father, must learn to breathe.”
Xita Rubert (Barcelona, 1996) studied philosophy and literature in England. His first novel, My days with the Kopps (Anagrama, 2022), was selected among the best books of the year by the main Spanish media, was a finalist for the Premier Roman de Chambéry award and has been translated into German and Portuguese. She is the daughter of the writer Luis Castro and the philosopher Xavier Rubert de Ventós.
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