Repoker of masterpieces in the Black Week: these are the authors who have won the prize

2023-07-15 23:22:57

“Lithium” from Imanol Caneyada has won the “Dashiel Hammet” award for the best crime novel written in Spanish last year. Caneyada led the list of award-winning authors in this edition of the Black Week in Gijón. A palmares that includes the name of Juan Tallón whose “Masterpiece” was recognized with the “Rodolfo Walsh” award for the Best Noir Nonfiction; Jose Manuel Fajardowhich won the “Espartaco” prize for the best historical novel”, Mariano Antolin Rato which had for “La suerte suprema” the “Celsius” award for the best science fiction and fantasy work and Núria Bendicho for whose novel “Tierras muertas” was the “Memorial Silverio Cañada” award for the best first crime novel.

“What I feel right now is disbelief. I’m very happy but I just can’t believe it“, explained an emotional Caneyada upon receiving the award for a book that the jury defined as “a work full of tenderness and compassion in a ruthless world.” The writer and journalist born in San Sebastián in 1968 but based in Mexico expressed his happiness for being at Black Week “one of the most important festivals in this country” and his disbelief at being chosen from “such quality nominees.

The awards ceremony began with the recognition of “La suerte suprema” by Mariano Antolín Rato, as the best science fiction work. The author surprised by describing his work as a realistic novel built with materials from the daily press: “To readers it sounds like speculative science or science fiction, but no, science fiction since the 60s corresponds to realism.”

“It’s like a punch“. With that forcefulness José Manuel Fajardo described his “Hate”, the novel that gave him the “Espartaco” prize in a Black Week to which he has been linked since its second edition. It is, as the Granada-born author recalled, his first literary prize in Spain at the age of 23. And knowing at last what it feels like to win an award was the feeling that Juan Tallón wanted to share with his colleagues after winning the “Rodolfo Walsh for Best Noir Nonfiction Work for “Masterpiece” . Tallon described his literary piece as a sculpture that seeks to have a personal form, narrated from multiple voices that only speak once and where he reveals “some of the miseries of contemporary art and conveys a reflection of enormous interest on what is today a work of art and what is not”.

The one that bears the name of the Asturian publisher Silverio Cañada served to recognize the work of the Catalan Núria Bendicho Giró in her first novel of the genre. Bendicho was excited that her novel has come this far and considered it a tribute to her teachers.