The Sant Joan Prize discovers two new literary voices

BarcelonaFor 46 years, the Sant Joan prize has recognized narrative work —fiction or otherwise— and throughout this almost half-century of history, it has recognized authors with long careers such as Vicenç Villatoro, Maria de la Pau Janer, Baltasar Porcel and Carme Riera, but it has also discovered, especially recently, voices such as those of Àlvar Caixal, Alba Gómez Gabriel and Aida Sunyol. Convened by the Fundació Antigues Caixes Catalanes and BBVA and endowed with 35,000 euros, the prize has been split into two categories this year and, without initial intention, has incorporated two new voices into the Catalan literary system, Jordi Marrón and Laura Pallarés.

Marrón has won the 46th Sant Joan prize with Manual de flotació, an irreverent comedy set in contemporary Barcelona that begins at a delicate moment in the life of the protagonist, the pharmacist and amateur writer Teresa Saurí. Shortly after her mother's death, Saurí inherits the large family home in Eixample and, carrying the urn containing her mother's ashes, returns to the guesthouse on the Portuguese coast where, shortly after her father abandoned the family, she experienced uninhibited free love and sex and also suffered a tragedy. "Many non-professional authors find it difficult to accept the overwhelming and oceanic silence of the publishing industry when we write a book and send it out — said Marrón this Monday, who was born in Barcelona in 1974, is a biologist and secondary school teacher and has studied creative writing at the Ateneu Barcelonès—. At first, the "}no was a bit difficult for me, but it also helped me to start a new project." Marrón came up with the idea for the novel "one morning when he was traveling with his family to Portugal." "What was supposed to be a caustic thriller has become a black or quite self-parodying comedy," he added. Among Marrón's references are "a lot of classic literature" —he cited Dostoevsky, Dumas and Flaubert—, although also "summer best-sellers, if they are well written".A ghost from the Civil War

Laura Pallarés has won the first edition of the Sant Joan Joves Talents award —with a prize of 10,000 euros and open to authors up to 35 years old— with Qui ha de callar. Born in 1999 in Terres de l'Ebre, she graduated in biomedical sciences from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and is completing her doctorate in paleogenomics, the field that studies the recovery and analysis of genetic material from biological remains of the past. The enigma that Judit must solve from present-day Catalonia dates back to a love story shaken by violence during the Civil War in Terra Alta. "I have a daily relationship with death for work reasons. The consequences of the Civil War reach us today and still influence us —explained Pallarés, who declared herself an enthusiastic reader of Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Mercè Rodoreda—. One of the pillars of this novel is exploring gender identity through the story between Teresa and Salvador. There have always been people who do not feel identified with the gender others attribute to them and we should be able to love whomever we want." The story, set during the Civil War, intertwines with the one taking place in the present through Judit's investigations following the discovery of "Teresa's ghost".