The Argentine writer and journalist Jorge Fernández Díaz (1960) has conquered with his novel Martial’s secret the 81st edition of the Nadal award, the award with which the grand prix season in Spain begins in Barcelona and which represents the first Christmas gift in the form of a book.
The Destino publishing house has also presented the 57th Josep Plá award during its traditional literary evening on Three Kings’ Day, which went to the author and popularizer David Bueno (1964) for his book The art of being humana journey through the arts and neuroscience.
This year, the Nadal-winning novel, which was presented under the pseudonym Daniel Ocampo and the title Martial, It also comes wrapped in the aroma of a most illustrious name in fiction, the Barcelona native Ana María Matutewhose first centenary will be celebrated in 2025. The figure and work of Matute will accompany readers throughout the year, as they have done in a particular way at the Nadal award ceremony on the traditional night of January 6.
Fernández Díaz, the successful author of Mother, has been recognized for a biographical book that returns to the family as a source of inspiration, this time, through the father figure, an enigma that every child needs to solve.
The writer wants to understand who his father, Marcial Fernández, really was, years after his death. To do this, he undertakes a narrative with painful overtones and a certain suspense, that runs between Asturias and Buenos Aires and is situated in the time frame of the second half of the 20th century and the current moment.
This novel is a tribute to Spanish migrants and to the films that formed the author’s personality. And it dives into the deepest family mysteries, woven by relationships between parents and children, often edged with thorns.
Jorge Fernández Díaz, author of other books such as Cora and I will love you madly, has given life to agent Remil, protagonist of his saga The dagger, The wound and The betrayal.
For his part, David In his book, Bueno connects science with humanism. Both books will be on sale on February 5. Nadal is endowed with 30,000 euros and Josep Plá, with 10,000.
The gala dinner where the Nadal is awarded has had an atmosphere full of prominent names in Spanish fiction (Alicia Jiménez Bartlett, César Pérez Gellida, Ana Merino…) and with the presence of the jury, made up of the winners of this award in previous years: Inés Martín Rodrigo, 2022 (who has read the winning document), Care Santos (2017), Lorenzo Silva (2000), Andrés Trapiello (2003) and the editor Emili Rosales.
Precisely at the beginning of the literary dinner, Martín Rodrigo has glossed the figure of Ana María Matute, of whom he has said that she is a writer “who cannot be conjugated in the past”, who anticipated feminism and fought all her life for being independent.
The presence of Matute, author of the book First Memorywith which she won the Nadal in 1959, has given this traditional dinner an aura of solemnity, respect and gratitude to one of the most fruitful novelists in the history of recent Spanish literature, who died in 2014 and who won the Cervantes prize four years earlier.
To the act, which has gathered 300 guestsThe president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, also attended; the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni; the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, and the Minister of Culture, Sònia Hernàndez. The former Catalan presidents José Montilla and Artur Mas also attended the literary evening.
The history of the Nadal award dates back to 81 years ago, when the director of the weekly Destination (seed of the publishing house), Ignacio Agustí, wanted to bet on two concepts that are still valid today: revive the Spanish novel and discover new talents. He named it after the editor-in-chief, Eugenio Nadal, brother of fellow journalist Santiago Nadal.
Agustí had this idea to free himself from the Christmas overdosea motto that remains more alive than ever.
Carmen Laforet, the first writer to win it with Nothingpaved the way for other books and authors that are in libraries and schools: Miguel Delibes, Rafael Sánchez-Ferlosio, Carmen Martín-Gaite...
In this call, 769 originals have been submitted, from 25 countries in addition to Spain. The last Nadal was won by César Pérez-Gellidad with Under dry ground.
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