A lighthearted, youthful comedy wins the 45th BBVA Sant Joan Award

BarcelonaMercromina, the first novel by Aida Sunyol Sánchez (Cardedeu, 1990), has just received the BBVA San Juan award for "a lighthearted and fun comedy", in the words of Pilar Beltran, from Edicions 62, and for "being a choral and urban work, well constructed, written with nerve, rhythm, 2.0 relationships between young characters installed in permanent instability, with a sense of humor, a groundbreaking, casual and iconoclastic vision of current reality". The debut of Aida Sunyol, who has published stories in Cloud and in the feminist erotica collections Sexo Fora Norma and is currently a secondary school biology and geology teacher, she has won out of the hundred works nominated for the award. "I studied science, but I have dedicated myself to law and, for some time now, to teaching," she comments. "Since the COVID-19 pandemic, I have regained my love of writing and started writing short stories and novels. My father says that my multiplicity of interests makes me...

The author explains that her debut is "a work that may seem unconventional due to the type of situations it deals with and the irony." She describes it thus: "There are many characters, all of them marked by the crisis of turning 30, who have fragmented sexual-affective relationships and friendships, but who hide a desire to genuinely connect with the world." Mercromina explores very contemporary life paths and arcs, set mostly in Barcelona. Among the protagonists is Fernando, recently returned from Los Angeles, who has been in love with Alfie, his best friend from high school, who is married to Silvio, for too many years. Then he meets Karin, who makes a living spreading bile on social media while trying to forget Nadine, who has unpleasant memories of the city's most controversial film critic.

"I started Mercromina as a collection of stories two years ago, but I realized that the stories complemented each other and had commonalities: so I decided to turn the stories into a novel over the course of two summers," says Sunyol. The characters share "small everyday dramas and wounds in the soul that could be easily resolved with the soul as well. 30 years ago recently: "This crisis represents going from a youth in which one can make risky and exploratory decisions to having to accept a certain maturity." read, the author? "Among my references there are authors of the new generation such as Irene Pujadas, Irene Solà and Eva Baltasar –he says–. Reading them and finding myself in the same context is inspiring. I also read essays; I'm finishing them right now. The servitude of protocols, by Ingrid Guardiola".

Over 45 years, the BBVA Sant Joan award has recognized authors such as Miquel Bauçà, Ada Castells, Toni Sala, Melchor Comes, Najat El Hachmi, Roser Caminals, Marta Marín-Dòmine and Alba Gómez GabrielNext year, the Sant Joan Award will be divided into two categories: the current one, which rewards the winning work with 35,000 euros, and the Jove Award, which is open to authors between 18 and 35 years old and will have a prize of 10,000 euros.

According to José Ballester, BBVA's regional director in Catalonia, "the BBVA Sant Joan Award is not just a prestigious literary award: it is a declaration of commitment to the region, to the Catalan language, and to cultural creation." "This year," Ballester adds, "support for the new young category reinforces our desire to continue promoting Catalan literature and culture, paving the way for emerging talent and supporting them in their first steps. This close support, like the one we also offer in our daily activities as an entity, from our roots in the region, to serve."