Carmen wins 2008 Café Gijón Prize

"The jury wants to emphasize the daringness of the winning work's gambit, its brilliant use of literary culture, as well as the way it shatters customary narrative molds. At the same time that it constructs a hilarious meta-literary game around the figure of the author, the novel also provides a critical subtext that critiques the literary Parnassus and contemporary (especially Mexican) society."

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Excerpt from Jury announcement awarding Carmen's forthcoming El complot de los románticos [2009] the 2008 Café Gijón Prize:

On September 18, Carmen Boullosa was awarded the 2008 Café Gijón Prize, one of Spain's most distinguished literary awards, for her forthcoming novel El Complot De Los Románticos (tentative English title: Dante Hits the Road), to be published in 2009 by Siruela of Madrid.

The prize, given for not-yet-published novels, is one of Spain's oldest. It was created in 1949, to compete with the Nadal Prize of Barcelona, by Fernando Fernán Gómez (the era's most famous film actor), along with the poet Gerardo Diego and author Enrique Jardiel Poncela, among others.

It was named in honor of the Café Gijón, Madrid's historic literary café founded in 1888, where artists and writers long gathered to hold "tertulias" (conversational parties). The prize was originally administered by the Café Gijón itself, and paid out of Fernán Gómez´s pocket. Since 1989 it has been managed by the municipality of Gijón, in Asturias, Spain.

Among former awardees are Ana María Matute (who also won the Nadal Prize, National Literature Prize, and Critics' Prize), Carmen Martín Gaite (who won the Nadal and the Prince of Asturias Prize), Leonardo Padura, and Eduardo Mendicutti, among many others.

For the 2008 contest, 596 manuscripts were submitted to the jury, roughly half from authors in Spain, the rest from novelists in 23 different countries. Carmen is the first Mexican ever to receive the prize.

The jury this year was headed by Rosa Regás (winner of the Nadal Prize, former director of the Casa de América, former director of the National Library of Spain), and included: Antonio Colinas (one of the Spain's most eminent poets), Mercedes Monmanny (a leading literary critic), José María Guelbenzu (novelist and critic) and Marcos Giralt Torrente (winner of the Herralde Prize).

In their decision, the jurors said: "The jury wants to emphasize the daringness of the winning work's gambit, its brilliant use of literary culture, as well as the way it shatters customary narrative molds. At the same time that it constructs a hilarious meta-literary game around the figure of the author, the novel also provides a subtext that critiques the literary Parnassus and contemporary (especially Mexican) society."

The prize carries with it an award of 18,000 Euros.

Boullosa's book will be brought out in January 2009 by Spain's distinguished Ediciones Siruela, the house that publishes Amos Oz, George Steiner, Italo Calvino, Clarice Lispector, Diane Wei Liang, Junichirô Tanizaki, Peter Matthiessen, Marguerite Duras, Robert Walser, Herta Müller, Gerald Bosch, among others.

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An interview on the Premio de novela Café Gijón