The Cuban Leonardo Padura is among the twelve finalists of the IV Biennial Novel Prize Mario Vargas Llosa

April 11, 2021

Selected from among more than 400 novels that responded to the call, the list of the 12 finalists of the IV Mario Vargas Llosa Biennial Novel Prize was announced, endowed with a sum of 100 thousand US dollars and whose winner will be revealed during the Biennial to be held in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico, from September 23 to 26.

Organized by the Vargas Llosa Chair and the Guadalajara University Foundation, with the support of the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the prize could be accessed by the titles No es un río, by Argentine Selva Almada; La forastera, by Spanish Olga Merino; Los que nunca olvidarán, by Uruguayan Fernando Butazzoni; El libro de Eva, by Carmen Boullosa; Cometierra, by Argentine Dolores Reyes, and Poeta chileno, by Alejandro Zambra.

Among the finalists is also Cuban Leonardo Padura, with Como polvo en el viento; Colombians Santiago Gamboa and Juan Gabriel Vásquez, with Será larga la noche and Volver la vista atrás (respectively); Rewind, by Juan Tallón; Un amor, by Sara Mesa, and La buena suerte, by Rosa Montero, the latter two Spanish.

From this selection, the jury will choose five novels, whose authors will participate in the activities of the IV Vargas Llosa Novel Biennial, which will take place from September 23 to 26 at the Conjunto Santander de Artes Escénicas of the University of Guadalajara, in Mexico.

The winning novel will be chosen by a jury headed by writer and journalist Leila Guerriero, whose announcement will be made at the closing of the festival, where there will be the presence of Nobel Prize in Literature Mario Vargas Llosa and about twenty Spanish-language writers.

The first edition of the Prize, in 2014, was awarded to the work Prohibido entrar sin pantalones (Seix Barral), by Spanish Juan Bonilla; in 2016, to the work Si te vieras con mis ojos (Alfaguara), by Chilean Carlos Franz, and in 2019 —the first edition held in Guadalajara— to The Night (Alfaguara), by Rodrigo Blanco Calderón.