Aena creates a literary prize in Spanish with a prize of one million euros and will award it in Barcelona before Sant Jordi
The award, which is more lucrative than the Nobel Prize, is for a work published in Spanish or in co-official languages and translated by 2025.
BarcelonaAirport operator Aena announced this Thursday the call for entries for the new Aena Prize for Latin American Narrative, which will award one million euros to the winning work and 30,000 euros to each of the four finalists. The prize was announced at an event held at the Piarist Schools in Madrid, attended by writer Rosa Montero, who will chair the jury, and Aena's president, Mauricio Lucena. The winner of this first edition will be announced at a gala to be held in Barcelona on April 8. The five finalists will be announced on Tuesday, March 17. The prize will be awarded to a work published in 2025 in Spanish or in the co-official languages of Spain, provided it has a Spanish translation. The prize money is higher than the Nobel Prize (which does not reach one million euros) and equals the highest-paying prize for a published work, the Planeta Prize. The most prestigious prize in the Spanish language is the Cervantes Prize, which comes with a cash award of 125,000 euros. According to Lucena, "there is no publishing interest whatsoever that could interfere with the impartiality of the prize." The goal is for the prize to also have an impact in Latin America. In Catalan, there is the Òmnium Prize for published work (with a cash award of 25,000 euros), but in Spanish, there was no major prize for the best published work of the year, similar to the Goncourt Prize in France or the Booker Prize in the United Kingdom. The Goncourt Prize is symbolic: ten euros. And the Booker Prize is less than 60,000 euros. The Alfaguara Prize is worth 148,000 euros, and the Fernando Lara Prize 120,000 euros. In reality, the prize's budget is even higher. Aena, a semi-public company under the Ministry of Transport, will invest up to 2.5 million euros. 1.4 million euros will be allocated to Aena's purchase of over 5,000 copies of the book for distribution to Aena employees, municipalities where the airport operator has a presence, and educational and cultural spaces. The jury, along with Montero, will include writers Pilar Adón, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Jorge Fernández Díaz, José Carlos Llop, Élmer Mendoza, and Leila Guerriero. The Gabo Foundation and the Vargas Llosa Chair are collaborating entities. A team of professional readers will select five works for the jury.
