"A brilliant thief" is the winning work of the 42nd El Vaixell de Vapor Award

A Brilliant Thief, by Cristina Ros, has been the winning work of the El Vaixell de Vapor Award from Editorial Cruïlla, a cultural benchmark for children's and young adult literature in the Catalan language. The award for children's literature, endowed with 6,000 euros, was presented at the Mezza Salon of the Hotel Icon in Barcelona. For its part, the 2026 Gran Angular Award, intended for young adult literature and which this year celebrated its 36th edition, has been declared void.

The jury of the 2026 El Vaixell de Vapor Award has recognized A Brilliant Thief as the best work among all those submitted in this edition for its power to make the imagination soar and for being "one of those that fuel the desire to keep reading page after page," as highlighted by Laia Santís, member of the jury, teacher, and prescriber. In the words of Anna Pauner, executive editor at Cruïlla and also a member of the jury, it is "an intelligent and well-articulated novel about the friendship between two unforgettable characters that, furthermore, is based on a true event that will not leave readers indifferent." Dolors Ortiz, editor at Cruïlla, and the writer Mireia Vidal and the bookseller Veri Pena have also been part of the jury.

The novel tells the story of Arthur Boycott, a ghost who has been trapped for almost a century in a library with the appearance of the eleven-year-old boy he once was. Unable to be seen by the living, everything changes when he meets Maggie, a young avid reader who might be able to believe in him and help him discover what keeps him tied to that place. Together, despite belonging to very different eras, they will embark on an adventure full of mysteries, science, literature, and technology, through which they will also discover the value of friendship and learn to observe the world from different perspectives.

Reading for fun

“Above any message, I want children to enjoy reading and to approach books without pressure, as if it were a game. After all, we become readers for fun, and it is important that they also have the freedom to choose the stories they like to develop their own criteria,” remarked Cristina Ros upon receiving the award. Friendship and curiosity, learning to understand and complement each other are the values of a story that builds bridges between the past and the present, and speaks of science and letters, and the analog and digital world.

Cristina Ros (Pallejà, Baix Llobregat, 1989) graduated in Humanities from the Open University of Catalonia and has worked as a freelance in the publishing sector since 2012, as a professional reader and proofreader. For ten years she maintained a literary review blog and currently writes articles about books and literature for media such as elDiario.es, La Lectora or Llegir.cat. In 2019 she decided to focus on literary writing and since then she has written several novels for different age groups, of which A Brilliant Thief is the first one she has published.