The Museum is no longer enough for the Planeta Prize. The magnificent Oval Hall of the MNAC has become too small and in its 75th edition, presided over by Their Majesties the Kings, it has moved to Pavilion 1 of the Fira de Barcelona to host its most crowded gala and give another coup de effect with the great lady of Latin American literature, Isabel Allende, who has won the million euros of the award with the second part of The House of the Spirits, the best seller that she published in 1982. Meanwhile, the young philologist and screenwriter Sergio Hernández has been a finalist, winning 200,000 euros for a book that speculates on a plot to assassinate Antonio Machado.
In another record year, Allende has won 1,424 manuscripts, a figure that marks a new participation milestone. His novel is titled The Hour Before Dawn and stars Alba, the granddaughter of the family saga that unfolded in The House of the Spirits, a universe that he has also explored in other of his books, but at different times.
Set in the harsh years of the Chilean dictatorship, the novel begins when Alba, who has been imprisoned and tortured, returns to the family home... pregnant. Told in the third person but sometimes jumping into the first person, The Hour Before Dawn rises as a voice against oppression: the protagonist goes from being a victim gripped by fear and pain to the chronicler of a turbulent time. Throughout the book, Allende reflects on the desire for revenge, both individual and collective. He describes it as "a poison" that corrodes the insides, like jealousy. And Alba will fight to break this inexorable cycle of violence.
Planeta once again delivers the editorial surprise by betting on a respected best-selling author, who has written more than 30 books translated into more than 40 languages. And it has sold a whopping more than 77 million copies worldwide. A writer who was published by the Penguin Random House group and who now joins the Planeta team, adding new recognition to her already extensive track record, which includes the Chilean National Literature Prize or, more recent and closer, the Barcino for Historical Literature awarded by the Barcelona City Council.
For his part, the Valencian Sergio Hernández has been a finalist with La Añoranza, a book that speculates on an attempted murder of the poet Antonio Machado. Philologist and screenwriter, Hernández has published several graphic novels under the Planeta Cómic imprint (Backhome, Hysteria or the adaptation of Soy Leyenda), a book of short stories and the novel The Wounded Letter. "My father has been a bookseller for many years and I know first-hand what this award means, I have grown up with it," acknowledged an excited Hernández, who with La Añoranza takes a leap in scale and projection.
But, without a doubt, the great protagonist of the night has been Allende, at his splendid 84 years.
The anniversary
"Two years ago we were also in Barcelona for the 75th anniversary of the Planeta group, which has contributed decisively to enriching our cultural panorama and giving it international projection," is how King Felipe VI welcomed the gala, with a few words in Catalan. The monarch highlighted the "solidity and roots" of the award in his speech, before a large representation of the cultural, business and political world, with the presence of Minister Ernest Urtasun, President Salvador Illa, Mayor Jaume Collboni and the President of the Constitutional Court, Cándido Conde-Pumpido.
The Planeta continues to be the best-endowed award in the world, above the Nobel, although this year it has come under competition from the AENA de Narrativa, which has burst onto the literary scene with a super check for a work already published, instead of an unpublished one. However, the Planeta is a consolidated tradition in the calendar: it is celebrated every October 15 in honor of the name day of María Teresa Bosch, wife of the editor José Manuel Lara, who founded the award in 1952 to promote Spanish writers. «There is much to celebrate! 75 years of history are many. The award was born with a double vocation: to give maximum dissemination at a time when books were rarely seen and to help authors dedicate themselves to writing and making a living from literature," highlighted José Creuheras, president of the Planeta group and the Atresmedia corporation.
Throughout these 75 years, Planeta has sold 47 million books, which represents an impressive average of nearly 625,000 volumes per edition: practically every Spanish home has a Planeta on the shelf. And the Allende effect, multiplied by the claim of the second part of The House of the Spirits, can take those figures even further.
In this anniversary gala, the publisher wanted to review the extensive history of an award that illustrious authors such as Ana María Matute have won ("it was a bombshell and that they gave it to a woman much more," the writer, the first woman to receive it in 1954, recalled in an emotional video), but also Terenci Moix, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Jorge Semprún... Curiously, the two authors who would also end up with a Nobel Prize won the Planeta consecutively: Mario Vargas Llosa in 1993 (the Swedish Academy would award him in 2010) and Camilo José Cela in 1994, when he had already had the Nobel Prize for five years and is still the last Spaniard to receive it today.
