Two women representing different continents and generations are the latest recipients of the coveted Herralde Prize from Barcelona-based publisher Editorial Anagrama.
For only the second time, two authors shared this annual award for an unpublished novel written in Spanish. Now the youngest recipient in the award’s history, 28-year-old Xita Rubert grew up between Barcelona and Galicia, and currently lives in New York City, while completing her PhD at Princeton University. The other winner is Cynthia Rimsky, 62, a Chilean author of ten previous novels, who lives in Buenos Aires, where she is a professor at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes. Rubert and Rimsky’s novels were published by Anagrama in Spain on November 27, with publication in Latin and South America to follow this month.
Both novels received advances of €15,000 with the prize, which “undoubtedly puts the books on the radar of international publishers who may be interested in their translation,” said Anagrama’s editorial director Silvia Sesé.
“I pay special attention to the Herralde,” said HarperVia’s editorial director Juan Milà, who worked in Spain for many years, including at such publishing houses as Planeta and Salamandra. “It’s the best endorsement for many authors on their way to becoming well established in Spanish, and eventually internationally,” he said, recalling such notable winners as Roberto Bolaño, the last Chilean to receive the prize, which was awarded in 1998 to his breakout novel The Savage Detectives. Other previous recipients include Javier Marías, Álvaro Enrigue, and Mariana Enríquez.
Rimsky’s winning novel, Clara and Confusion, is her first with Anagrama, which is handling translation rights for the author in partnership with the Indent Agency. Rubert’s The Key Biscayne Affair is her follow-up to My Days with the Kopps, published by Anagrama in 2022, which was also translated into German and Portuguese.
Rubert’s novel, according to her agent Marina Penalva of Casanovas & Lynch, combines elements of American noir and British humor. The story follows a divorced father who takes his son and daughter to live for a year on the small island off the coast of Miami, with an eccentric cast of millionaires, diplomats, intellectuals, and outcasts reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith’s novels, Penalva said, as well as the TV series White Lotus and the film Marriage Story, in its depiction of a difficult divorce and custody battle.
As for Rimsky’s Clara and Confusion, the novel is “an avant garde romantic comedy,” according to Juan Pablo Villalobos, a previous Herralde winner and now jury member. Centering on a plumber who falls in love with a conceptual artist, the book was inspired by workers Rimsky met while building a new house. “Each of Cynthia Rimsky’s books unfolds a gaze more attentive to the inexhaustible complexity of lesser lives than to the plot,” said Chilean novelist Simon López Trujillo.
Many of Spain’s literary prizes are sponsored by publishers and given to unpublished manuscripts, which gives authors a direct path to submitting work. Later in the process, the books benefit from the publicity surrounding the announcement.
Anagrama’s publishing schedule for Herralde winners is fast to seize on momentum. “Their editors work on a tight schedule to release the award-winning books shortly after they are announced,” said Daniel Saldaña Paris, the 2021 Herralde finalist for The Dance and the Fire. The official announcement—usually one winner and one finalist—is always the first Monday in November, with publication later in the month.
This approach—publishers awarding prizes to authors for unpublished manuscripts—is different from the award system in the U.S. as well as the U.K. and other European countries. Traditionally, when an author receives prize recognition, the award’s jury has been given the opportunity to consider the work’s critical reception; furthermore, for most literary awards, jury members represent a cultural institution, rather than a specific publisher.
There are exceptions that follow the Spanish model in the anglophone world, most notably the Novel Prize. Started in 2020 and jointly awarded by Fitzcarraldo (U.K./Ireland), New Directions (North America), and Giramondo (Australia/NZ), the Novel Prize is an innovative collaboration between the three literary publishers to recognize and jointly publish new literary fiction in English.
But in Spain, almost all publishers offer prizes, some extraordinarily lucrative. The country’s largest publisher, Planeta, awards €1 million for its major prize, and €200,000 to the finalist. The awards have championed enduring works, such as The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, published through Penguin Random House Spain’s Alfaguarda Prize, and The Time of Cherries by Montserrat Roig, published via Planeta’s Sant Jordi Prize for Catalan-language novels.
Anagrama is owned by the Italian publishing company Feltrinelli and the house remains independent of Planeta and Penguin Random House, the two corporate publishers that dominate the Spanish book industry, which was the intention of Jorge Herralde, who founded Anagrama in 1969. The prize that carries his name still stands out for the number of great hispanophone authors—Spanish and Latin American alike—whom it has recognized since the prize was established in 1983.
“The Herralde has maintained a very high level of literary prestige over the years,” said María Lynch, director of Casanovas & Lynch, which represents a handful of Herralde winners, including Andrés Barba and Mariana Enríquez, along with now Rubert. “Scouts and international publishers pay attention to it.”
Jeremy Wang-Iverson is a literary publicist living in Barcelona.
