Reuters
Source: Reuters
Isabel Allende has won this year’s edition of Spain’s Planeta Prize on Thursday for the sequel to her bestselling fiction debut, four decades after the Chilean novelist introduced readers to the Trueba family’s ghosts, secrets and upheavals.
The prestigious award carrying a €1 million ($1.16 million) cash prize went to Allende’s “La hora antes del alba” (The Hour Before Dawn). It follows one of the characters from her acclaimed “The House of the Spirits”, published in 1982.
“It’s like winning the Nobel (Prize),” the 84-year-old writer told reporters after the ceremony on Thursday night in Barcelona led by Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia.
The new novel focuses on Alba, granddaughter of Esteban Trueba and Clara del Valle, as she rebuilds her life after imprisonment and torture under the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
The prize is among the Spanish-speaking world’s most commercially important literary awards, although it also draws regular criticism over a selection process that is piecemeal, theatrical and often seen as favouring established names.
