Nativel Preciado, Manuel Vilas and Víctor del Árbol will participate in the final decision of the contest, which was presented by Benjamín Prado
Sky with a beret in Madrid, on an ideal morning to listen to writers talk about novels. In a high room of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, which overlooks one of Madrid’s most literary neighborhoods, the Murcia City Council presented its first Ramón Gaya International Short Novel Literary Contest. The city of Murcia thus enters the pages of fiction with a prize endowed with 30,000 euros, an economic bet that is more than desirable for those who live in the narrow margins of the lines, however spacious the universe of imagination may be. The amount places it among the top ten literary contests in Spain.
The Councilor for Sports, Tourism and Culture, Pedro García Rex, pointed out “the double objective of the Contest: to encourage literary creativity in the Spanish language and to keep alive the memory of Ramón Gaya, best known for his pictorial work but also a great writer.”
“Everything happens a little before it happens,” wrote the Murcian painter and poet in one of his aphorisms, and this will also happen in the literary award that will bear his name. The result will already have begun to take shape in a story scrawled on a pad or laptop several weeks before a top-tier jury returns its verdict. The writer Carmen Posadas (‘License to spy’ is her latest novel) presides over the jury, which is completed by the journalist and writer Nativel Preciado (Azorín Award for ‘The Elephant Sanctuary’), the literary critic José María Pozuelo Yvancos and the novelist Manuel Vilas (‘Ordesa’, among many other titles).
“In my beginnings I thought how one makes his way in the world of literature, and knowing that we are going to help others fulfill their dream is a joy,” said Carmen Posadas, who heads “a jury of bells.” The Uruguayan narrator highlighted “the complicated length of the short novel, a challenge for any writer.” In fact, the president of the pre-jury, Víctor del Árbol, 2016 Nadal Award winner for ‘The eve of almost everything’, confessed that “he would be incapable of writing a novel of less than 500 pages.” The Barcelona writer, author of thrillers such as ‘A million drops’, emphasized “the effort of the Murcia City Council to dignify literary creation.” He leads a pre-jury formed by Teresa Vicente, Aurora Gil Bohórquez, Elena Fuentes, Pedro Alberto Cruz and the journalist Lola Gracia, coordinator of the contest. “We are going to make it very difficult for the jury,” said Del Árbol. The pre-jury will face the largest selection of texts, of which the jury will receive ten finalists for the final selection of a single winner. Rigor, quality and values are the three diamonds that they will look for among the manuscripts. “I am sure that we are going to find our Juan Rulfo,” he assured.
The bases, in January
Another aphorism by Gaya, who became friends with Luis Cernuda, María Zambrano, Rosa Chacel and José Bergamín, said that “the painter, like the poet, like the musician, is perhaps no more than an intermediary.” The Department of Culture of Murcia expects novelist ‘intermediaries’ to fill the Contest, whose bases will be published at the beginning of 2023, although García Rex already announced on Monday that the texts will have to have a minimum of 80 pages and a maximum of one hundred pages in DIN A-4 format, typed with Arial font, size 12, double spaced and one side only. Any work written in Spanish that is original, strictly unpublished and of individual authorship may enter the contest. Refrain from co-authors in the style of Carmen Mola.
“It is an award that makes people dream of winning,” said the poet Benjamín Prado, who presented the event in a bright room of the Círculo over the already smoking chimneys of the great Madrid roof. The author of ‘Vinagre y rosas’ and ‘I nego todo’ declared himself an admirer of Gaya, “an almost Renaissance man” and praised his work on Velázquez and his poetry, “of great depth and false lightness”.
For the poet, the only negative note of the contest is that “we will not be able to present ourselves”, which remains opponents in the long list of competitors for the new contestants. After all, as Víctor del Árbol said, “anyone has the possibility. He just has to write a great novel ».
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