On Monday, March 26th, the winner of the 15th edition of the Alfaguara Novel Prize will be announced. A total of 785 original manuscripts were received, the highest-volume participation in the history of the Prize.

Of the 785 contending manuscripts, 307 were sent from Spain, 145 were received from Argentina, 108 from Mexico, 47 from Colombia, 31 from the United States, 25 from Chile, 25 from Ecuador, 23 from Peru, and 16 from Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua. 14 manuscripts originated in Uruguay, 12 in Guatemala and Honduras, 9 in El Salvador, 8 in Venezuela, 8 inBolivia, 5 in the Dominican Republic and 4 in Paraguay.

The Prize’s prestigious jury is composed of writers and prominent cultural figures. This year, writer Rosa Montero will preside over the jury for the 15th edition of the Alfaguara Novel Prize. The names of other members of the jury will be made public at the time of the announcement.

Since its inception in 1998, the Alfaguara Novel Prize has been presided by: Carlos Fuentes, Eduardo Mendoza, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Antonio Munoz Molina, Jorge Semprun, Luis Mateo Diez, Jose Saramago, Jose Manuel Caballero Bonald, Angeles Mastretta, Mario Vargas Llosa, Sergio Ramirez, Luis Goytisolo, Manuel Vicent, and Bernardo Atxaga.

The Alfaguara Novel Prize has become a benchmark for quality literary awards given to unpublished works written in Spanish and consists of 175,000 dollars and a statue by Martin Chirino. Its prestige throughout the Spanish-speaking world means that winning works enjoy international distribution, supported by the simultaneous publishing of the winning work in Spain, Latin America and the United States.

To date, the winners of the Alfaguara Novel Prize are Caracol Beach by Eliseo Alberto and Margarita, esta linda la mar by Sergio Ramirez (winners both of the first edition of the Prize), Son de Mar by Manuel Vicent, Ultimas noticias del paraiso by Clara Sanchez, La piel del cielo by Elena Poniatowska, El vuelo de la reina by Tomas Eloy Martínez, Diablo Guardian by Xavier Velasco, Delirio by Laura Restrepo, El turno del escriba  by Graciela Montes and Ema Wolf, Abril rojo by Santiago Roncagliolo, Mira si yo te querre by Luis Leante, Chiquita by Antonio Orlando Rodriguez, El viajero del siglo by Andrés Neuman, El arte de la resurrección by Hernan Rivera Letelier, and El ruido de las cosas al caer by Juan Gabriel Vasquez.

The winners enjoy a promotional tour that takes them to almost all Spanish-speaking countries in various continents. In addition, the winning novel is distributed simultaneously in 19 Spanish-speaking countries, reaching an audience of over 400 million readers.

Successive Alfaguara Prize winners have been translated into numerous languages, garnering the highest reviews in the international arena as well as further awards, corroborating the quality of the winning works. The 2009 winner, El viajero del siglo, by Andres Neuman, received the Literary Critic’s Award a year later. Abril rojo, by Santiago Roncagliolo (winner of the Alfaguara Novel Prize in 2006), was awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, one of U.K.’s most prestigious awards given to the best work of fiction translated into English.

The success of the Alfaguara Novel Prize is also reflected in the frequent translations of winning works and in Bigas Luna’s film Son de Mar, based on the homonymous novel by Manuel Vicent.

The announcement will be transmitted live through the following websites:
www.alfaguara.com,
www.alfaguara.santillana.es,
www.elpais.com,
www.cadenaser.com
www.prisa.com.

For information, visit www.prisaediciones.com/us . Find  Santillana USA Publishing on Facebook under Santillana USA & Puerto Rico and on Twitter @librosenespanol.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/algoquehacer/

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