The Colombian writer Margarita García Robayo (Cartagena de Indias, 1980) was awarded this Thursday with the 44th Herralde Prize for Querida Sharik, an epistolary novel about a woman looking for her origins. For the jury, which granted the award unanimously, this "splendid" book proves that the writer "is at the best moment of her career." Editor Silvia Sesé defined the work as "a reading that unsettles and fascinates," and highlighted "the ironic, cruel tone, which nevertheless ends up becoming committed to the characters." The award, granted by the publishing house Anagrama, is endowed with 25,000 euros and the publication of the novel, which will reach bookstores next week on Wednesday.

Throughout its 42-year history, the Herralde Novel Prize – worth 25,000 euros – has only been shared once. We have to go back to 1994 to find two winners, Pedro Zarraluki and Carlos Perellón. Three decades later they have been Chita Rubert and Cynthia Rimsky were chosen by the jury to share, ex aequo, the flagship award of the Anagrama publishing house, with the novels Key Biscayne Facts and Clear and confusing, two novels that "stand out for their eccentricity, for their risk and for going beyond the obvious," said the writer Juan Pablo Villalobos on behalf of the jury.