When Francesc Torralba (Barcelona, ​​1967) began teaching philosophy at the university, only five years older than his students. "Now I'm almost forty years older than them," he explains. "One of the changes between then and now is that I currently observe very high levels of disenchantment among students, both in the classroom and in tutorials." Torralba's new essay, Anatomy of Hope —which won the 2026 Josep Pla Prize—, stems from the unease he has observed in society in recent years, particularly affecting young people. "They are constantly bombarded with negative messages," the author continues. "They are told they will have precarious contracts, that they will never be able to buy a 60-square-meter apartment."² in Barcelona, ​​and that they will experience relationships marked by volatility." Adding to the negativity about the future is the media's portrayal of the present. "The news and newspapers tell us that both the local and global worlds are falling apart," he adds. "He has attempted suicide twice, what do I tell him?" he asks.

Every January 6th, Barcelona's Hotel Palace dresses up to celebrate the first literary evening of the year. Organized by Destino, an imprint of Planeta, the event has for 82 years awarded the Nadal Prize to a novel written in Spanish and for 58 years awarded the Josep Pla Prize to a work of fiction, essay, or memoir written in Catalan, named after one of the publishing house's most distinguished authors. Eclecticism has marked the jury's decisions over the last decade, which has recognized established novelists like Maria Barbal (2021), championed authors such as Laia Aguilar (2020), Gemma Aguilar (2023), and Jaume Clotet (2024), and recommended Good morning, it's eight o'clock!, by Antoni Bassas (2018), and has even awarded, with a keen commercial sense, the essay by the biologist and professor of genetics David Bueno The art of being human (2025)This year, the jury for the award, made up of Montse Barderi, David Bueno, Jaume Clotet, Manuel Forcano and the editor Glòria Gasch, has chosen, from among the 42 works submitted, the one that had the provisional title The fight against disenchantment, signed by Regina Climacus. Once they opened the envelope, they discovered that behind this female pseudonym hid a man: the philosopher, theologian, and historian Francesc Torralba (Barcelona, ​​1967).

This biologist and popularizer, ARA collaborator, He argues that it was the arts that made us human and that without them we would only be simple. Homo sapiens. It may well be so, considering that we have been prolific composers of symphonies and inventing all kinds of musical genres; capturing the world around us with colors on fabrics; telling a thousand stories on stage; dancing emotional and complex choreographies. That is why this wise man, capable of putting an auditorium full of teenagers in his pocket and making them listen to him with interest, assures that the arts, all of them, are our vessel to immerse ourselves in a journey to the depths of ourselves, and to reinterpret and understand the world around us.