The journalist, television presenter and writer Sonsoles Ónega (Madrid, 45 years old) has won the Planeta 2023 award with the work The maid’s daughters. The finalist in this 72nd edition is Alfonso Goizueta Alfaro with the text The blood of the father. The award was announced this Sunday night during a gala dinner in the Oval room of the National Museum of Art of Catalonia (MNAC), in Barcelona, attended by more than a thousand guests. The Planeta Prize is endowed with one million euros for the winning work (more than the Nobel Prize) and 200,000 for the finalist.
Ónega’s novel (which was presented under the pseudonym Gabriela Monte) tells the story, during much of the 20th century, in Galicia and Cuba, of the Valdés, a family of Galician canning businessmen, with special emphasis on the struggle of the women of the clan, who were decisive in the creation of their commercial empire. Although “a terrible secret will mark their lives forever,” according to the editorial. “It was an industry that has not been fair to women, who left their hands cleaning fish and closing cans. “This novel does justice to all of them,” said the new winner. This award represents a new milestone in the saga of television characters who triumph in the literary world. She also means it for the Ónega saga: Sonsoles, afternoon star of Antena 3 (Atresmedia, a Grupo Planeta company), she is the daughter of the famous journalist Fernando Ónega and sister of the journalist Cristina Ónega. “It is a difficult novel that I have written in the midst of many vicissitudes, but in which I felt magnetized from the beginning: it is the Galicia of my childhood,” added the writer.
The finalist surprises with his youth. Alfonso Goizueta Alfaro was born in Madrid in 1999, has a degree in History and International Relations from King’s College London, and was precocious: at only 17 years old he published Limiting power (Nobel Editions), where he dissects the evolution of European diplomacy between 1871 and 1939. Now he is awarded, under the pseudonym Luis Parterrío, for a narrative about the adventures of Alexander the Great in his advance towards Persia and his slow conversion, battle after battle, in a “tyrant who drags his people to death.” “I can’t believe it,” said the writer, “it’s my first novel and that it deserves this award is wonderful.” Magno is, for Goizuerta, the first president to use propaganda and considers his novel as an “initiatory journey.”
The jury was made up of José Manuel Blecua, Fernando G. Delgado, Juan Eslava Galán, Pere Gimferrer, Carmen Posadas, Rosa Regás and Belén López, director of the Planeta publishing house and secretary of the voting jury. “We have noticed that this year many historical novels have been presented, and there are also many female characters,” said Eslava Galán at the press conference held on Saturday at the Llotja in Barcelona. Last year’s winner was Luz Gabás with Far from Louisiana, of which the publisher claims to have sold about 600,000 copies. And the year before, the trio of male writers nicknamed after a woman: Carmen Mola. The revelation of the pseudonym caused quite a stir. In recent years, in addition to increasing the amount of the prize (in 2021 it went from 601,000 euros to the famous million; it started with 40,000 pesetas), there have been, with exceptions, awards that tend to be more commercial, to the detriment of more authoritative authors. “literary”.
Among guests at the populous gala (with also populous photocall) there were political figures such as Yolanda Díaz, second vice president of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy; Miquel Iceta, Minister of Culture and Sports; Joan Subirats, Minister of Universities (all acting), or the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni. Also numerous characters from the journalistic and television world; some writers, not so many.
The Planet dinner is a curious event between elegance and spectacle, with a curious tradition: during the course of the agape a eliminatory between the finalists is announced, as in a TV contest; Meanwhile, attendees can participate by venturing into a pool that will be rewarded with a batch of books. The faces of the award winners since its foundation are also projected on large screens. At the end of the process, in third position in the eliminatory, resisting until the last turn together with the two winners, the work remained Reunion; Its author participated under the pseudonym Tintaleve. A story about a Sandinista guerrilla, retired in the Madrid mountains, upon whose death her daughter returns to take care of her mother’s legacy, all in times of pandemic confinement.
The place, the Oval Room of the MNAC, is one of the largest event spaces in Europe, according to the museum itself, with a majestic vault and a large German organ from the EF Walcker company inaugurated on July 6, 1929 by Alfred Sittard. It needs a restoration of three million euros (the equivalent of three Planeta awards). In this space Alfonso XIII inaugurated the Universal Exhibition of the same year. It is difficult to imagine how it is cooked for more than a thousand people, but the fact is that it is done: an army of waiters served garden salad with Sant Carles prawns, sea bass loin and vegetable roll with pine nuts, and, for dessert, , chestnut chiboust with vanilla (the names of the dishes are summarized for space reasons). Cava and various wines.
A historical record
In this edition, 1,129 novels have been submitted to the Planeta, a record in the history of the award. There are 461 more than the previous year, a notable increase (40%) that the organization attributes to the simplification in the process of presenting the works: this year they could be sent by email, avoiding the hassle of printing, binding and shipping. After passing through several filters from readers external and internal to the publisher, the ten finalist texts that were presented to the jury were gradually selected. As José Creuheras, president of Grupo Planeta and Atresmedia, explained at Saturday’s meeting, it is also possible that a member of the jury rescues for the final a text that he knows has been presented, but that does not have to have passed the aforementioned ones. filters. It can be seen as the reparation of an injustice. Or as a shortcut.
There are already 45 million people who have read novels awarded with the Planeta prize in its 72 editions, a distinction that has been pointing out the main lines of commercial literature in Spanish: there are loyal readers of the prize every year and this book also becomes in a traditional gift object. Among the historical winners are Nobel Prize winners such as Camilo José Cela or Mario Vargas Llosa, but also a large sample of the great names in literature of recent decades such as Juan Marsé, Eduardo Mendoza, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Maruja Torres, Clara Sánchez, Terenci Moix or Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. From the first winner, Juan José Mira with At night there is no roadyes, 72 years ago, is not remembered much. Throughout its history, since 1952, there have been 27,000 writers who have tried their luck by sending a manuscript copy. Only a few have achieved glory (and money).
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