2024-01-21 13:03:00
Javier Raya Demidoff, with his novel The Children of Baanaue, wins the V City of Knowledge Science Fiction Novel Prize, worth 4,000 euros and publication in Premium Editorial.
The jury of the fifth edition of this Award has met, made up of José María Merino (National Prize for Fiction and Member of the Royal Spanish Academy), Sabino Cabeza (Minotauro Prize 2020), Mariano Villarreal, critic specialized in genre literature and administrator of the Literfan website, and María Teresa Martínez Ayllón as a representative member of the reading committee, and chaired by Enrique J. Quintano Repiso representing the Dehesa de Valme SA Research and Development Park, on January 19, 2024 at 7:30 p.m., After evaluating the five finalist works of this edition, it has agreed to award the novel Los niños de Baanaue, whose author has turned out to be, once the escrow has been opened, Javier Raya Demidoff, born in Barcelona and resident in Madrid.
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The jury highlighted that it is a novel written with great fluidity and dynamism and that it provides the merit of supporting a very complex scientific novum in a credible way. Likewise, it has highlighted the strength of the main female character, a vulnerable woman with very human feelings but capable of displaying iron determination in the face of adversity. The technique and literary quality put the finishing touch to this work that has excited and surprised three of the four members of the jury, highlighting that it is a work written by and for all fans of the science fiction genre.
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After choosing this work, the members of the jury agree to distinguish with an Honorable Mention the novel Holocracy, by Salvador Bayarri, a work that masterfully develops the theme of artificial intelligence and works sublimely on the psychology of the antagonistic characters. , as José María Merino has rightly highlighted, with the additional merit of narrating the work in the first person through four narrative voices. He also confronts two models of utopian society: one respectful of nature and a low technological profile and another based on the well-intentioned management of AIs.
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Finally, one of the jury members wanted to highlight the value of the work that came in third place, Blatta, pointing out that the text constitutes a pleasant mix of genres between science fiction and horror with abundant thriller elements.
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The delivery of the V City of Knowledge Science Fiction Novel Prize will take place on a date to be determined between Friday, March 15 and Friday, April 5 (depending on the editing and printing deadline of the award-winning work), and will be attended by from the award-winning author and several representatives of the event’s organizing entities.
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The winner of the Prize, Javier Raya, 51, has a degree in Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. The Children of Baanaue will be his first novel published on a traditional imprint.
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Regarding Salvador Bayarri, Honorable Mention, he has a doctorate in Physics and a degree in Philosophy, accustomed to working in Artificial Intelligence and who boasts among his literary merits the publication of nearly ten novels with notable sales success in some of his titles such as The ages of Itnis, whose third edition will be released in 2024.
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