"I had never entered a literary contest to avoid coming in last,", asserted Isabel Allende during her acceptance speech for the 75th Planeta Prize, endowed with one million euros, which meant she would leave Penguin Random House and join the group currently presided over by José Creuheras. The news has reopened, once again, the controversy over publishers changing by some authors, often spurred by literary awards for unpublished work, but also by economic offers difficult to refuse (although they do not usually transcend), by the desire to give a new boost to their career by changing houses and even as a sign of protest.

A total of 1,424 novels were hoping to win the 75th Planeta award until a few minutes ago, when the publisher announced, in a press conference at the Palau de la Música, which are the ten finalist works that the jury will take into account in the final deliberation, which will be made public during a dinner at Pavilion 1 of the Fira de Barcelona, in Montjuïc. "We can only be grateful to all those who have entrusted us with their most precious treasure, the effort of their creativity –assured José Creuheras, current president of Grupo Planeta–. Our great aspiration is to give maximum popularity to the winning work, regardless of the critical reception the books may have, which are ultimately endorsed by the response of the readers, which is very high and has increased in recent editions".

The AI has received its first Planeta award tonight in Barcelona. But it is not, in this case, a machine capable of generating a novel that has deceived the jury, but the initials of the winning author, Isabel Allende, the best-selling living novelist in Hispanic literature, with more than 80 million copies sold. The 84-year-old Chilean author entered the 75th edition of one of the best-endowed literary awards – surpassed by very little by the Nobel Prize, which offered 1.1 million euros to the winner, Anne Carson– to culminate her extensive career and star in an editorial scandal: Isabel Allende is changing houses.

"I'm still processing this milestone: I never would have thought that such an award could cross my path," he said this Friday at noon. Agnès Marquès Pujolar (Palma, 1979) during the press conference in which it was announced that she was the author chosen by the jury as the winner of the Ramon Llull 2026 prize, endowed with 60,000 euros. The Second Life of Geneva Vern It is the second novel by the journalist, who currently directs the program Catalonia night from Catalunya Ràdio and who debuted as a narrator with Nobody knows I'm here (Column, 2022). It will be published on February 25th in Column (and in Destino in Spanish).

The book sector had a very good year in 2020, seeing its turnover exceed that of 2019. One of the first effects of this growth will be reflected in the next Planeta Prize, which this year celebrates its 70th edition and will be awarded this Friday. The award will increase its endowment to €1m (until now it was at €600,000), above the Nobel Prize for Literature, which hands out €950,000. Thus, the Planeta Prize becomes the best-endowed literature prize in the world. With this increase, Planeta wants to "recognise the effort and talent of authors" and contribute to the dissemination of reading. "We believe that a society that reads is a better society", said the president of Grupo Planeta, José Crehueras, who added that he does not want to "enter into a competition with other prizes" in terms of the prize money. The rules of this year's edition set the prize at €600,000, but Crehueras believes that "the winner will not complain if we increase the prize to €1m".