Sebastià Alzamora is awarded the National Poetry Prize

BarcelonaThe writer Sebastià Alzamora (Llucmajor, 1972) has been awarded the National Poetry Prize, which is granted by the Ministry of Culture and is endowed with 30,000 euros. The jury has chosen his work Sala Augusta seguit de Llengua materna (Proa, 2025) for "its ability to transition, with identical genius, from the impassioned language of historical denunciation to the delicacy of domestic space". They also highlight that in this collection of poems, which is an evocation of Alzamora's memory, the author "weaves together with mastery collective history and family intimacy". "They called me shortly before lunch, while I was working on my new novel from home, in Llucmajor –comments the Majorcan author and ARA columnist by phone–. I picked up because I thought it would be about work, but I could not have expected it to be María José Gálvez, the Director General for Books of the Ministry of Culture. She informed me of the jury's deliberations, which had just concluded".

The book, the seventh poetry collection by Alzamora, who debuted as an author in 1994 with Rafel –recently reissued by Lleonard Muntaner–, consists of two extensive poems in free verse. In the first, Sala Augusta, Alzamora rescues images and scenes from the Civil War, such as that of a ship moored in the port of Palma, the Jaume I, which was converted by the Falangists into a prison for a few weeks in 1936. "I started writing the poem while I was working on the novel Reis del món (Proa, 2020) –he recalls–. It must have been a couple of years before the pandemic. The initial spark was the impression of knowing that the cinema where I have gone all my life had been a fascist prison. This impact set the poem in motion".

Killing for the homeland

Sala Augusta explains, without sparing details, some of the many crimes perpetrated during the Civil War. Cruel executions, rapes, mass shootings... "They killed for the fatherland / they killed for Spain and for the faith", we read there. "Patriotism always makes me suspicious –the author assured last year during an interview a few days before the publication of the book–. It happens to me as with religion and football: they are emotions that I can contemplate in others, but they do not ignite me at all. I believe a lot in that phrase by Samuel Johnson that says: 'Patriotism is often the last refuge of the scoundrel'. In the name of the fatherland, we have swallowed a great amount of shamelessness. And it still happens today". Alzamora also added: "The dead of the war are not only carried by us as a duty of collective memory, but they directly question our present. We live with politicians and citizens who think that those crimes were well done. This fascinates me and scares me".

One year and four months after publishing Sala Augusta followed by Mother Tongue, the book has received four awards for published work. The first was the Critics' Prize (2025), the second, the Cavall Verd from the Association of Writers in the Catalan Language (2026), the third, the Crítica Serra d'Or (2026), and now the National one has arrived. "It took me a long time to find the form for one and the other poem, which are very different from each other –assures Alzamora–. Between the initial impulse and the publication, I published three novels: Reis del món, Ràbia [Proa, 2022] and El Federal [Proa, 2024]".

The second poem of the book, Mother Tongue, contrasts strongly with the first: Alzamora turns the death and ignominy of the first pages into light through a childhood memory related to his mother. "From a tender melancholy, the poet pays homage to the figure of the mother and to a humble childhood marked by the women who sustained the home by working for the footwear industry", highlights the jury, which adds that every verse of the book "bears the weight of a memory that erects this work as an essential testimony of the human condition".

"Mother Tongue was born from the desire to explain the memory of going with my mother to deliver work at the factory –he comments–. My mother was a riveter: she sewed shoes. She would take the bundle where she carried the shoes in one hand and with the other she would hold mine". During the writing process, in the autumn of 2021, the author's mother caught Covid and died. "My mother's death ended up transforming the poem and the whole book", says Alzamora, who had spent almost a decade without publishing poetry. "My books of poems have been spreading out: between La netedat [Proa, 2018] and La part visible [Proa, 2009] quite a bit of time had also passed –he says–. It has perhaps been for biographical reasons, but also because I have more experience as a reader of poetry and now I act more cautiously. A poem makes you reach a different level of demand than a novel. In a novel you have many elements to hold onto: characters, plots, subplots, time, space... In a poem you only have the language. The words you choose and the ones you leave out".

On previous occasions, the National Poetry Prize has recognized works in the Catalan language such as Tots els cavalls, by Antònia Vicens (2018); Casa de misericòrdia, by Joan Margarit (2008); El vendaval, by Pere Gimferrer (1989), and Passeig d'aniversari, by Joan Vinyoli (1985).