Zepeda Wins Premio Planeta 2014

The 2014 Premio Planeta award was given to the Mexican writer and journalist Jorge Zepeda Patterson for his novel Milena o el fému más bello del mundo (Milena, or, the Most Beautiful Femur in the World). This is the first time the Premio Planeta has been awarded to a Mexican writer. The novel is a continuation of Zepeda’s Los corruptores (The Corruptors), published in 2013 and translated into several languages.

The Premio Planeta was established in 1952 by Grupo Planeta, the leading Spanish-language publishing group in Spain and Latin America. The award will be presented during the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) on December 6.

Köehler Books Launches Café con Leche

Café con Leche is the new imprint from Virginia Beach–based Köehler Books, which will publish titles written by Latino/Latina authors or of interest to Latino/Latina readers. The imprint will be headed by Leticia Gomez, who has worked since 1993 as a literary agent, editor, and author, and is also the founder of Savvy Literary Services. Gomez will run Café con Leche with Harris Kern, the author of more than 40 books.

The first book to be published in May 2015 by the new imprint is The Life of Ximena Godoy, by Chicana author Graciela Limón. Among her works is In Search of Bernabé (1993), which was a finalist for the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was named a “Notable Book of the Year” by the New York Times Book Review.

New Role for Friedman at Parragon

Wendy Friedman, previously president of Parragon North America/Latin America, has been promoted to president and COO of Parragon International. In this role, Friedman will oversee Parragon’s Latin America, Europe (excluding German-language), and Asia (co-edition) teams, as well as its U.K. gift business. Parragon publishes approximately 300–350 titles in Spanish that are primarily illustrated, non-author-driven nonfiction books. The main publishing areas for books in Spanish are cookbooks, adult nonfiction, children’s books, and licensed character books. “Currently, Spanish illustrated Bibles are selling particularly well,” Friedman says.

IPG Adds More Spanish Titles

From the world of magic to cupcakes, Independent Publishers Group (IPG) continues to expand its offering of books in Spanish. IPG recently announced that, starting in January 2015, it will distribute books from Linkgua, Cute Ediciones, and Páginas Libros de Magia.

Based in Barcelona, Linkgua has a collection of 1,600 Spanish and Latin American classics from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Since 1992, the Madrid-based publisher Páginas Libros de Magia has focused on books on magic and related arts for professionals and amateurs. Cute Ediciones, based in Buenos Aires, specializes in a variety of pastry cookbooks, as well as knitting and craft titles.

Unger Named Asturias Winner

David Unger, a Guatemalan writer and translator living in New York, won Guatemala’s 2014 Miguel Ángel Asturias prize—the country’s most prestigious literary award. Unger has also won the Ivri-Nasawi Poetry Prize and shared in the American Literary Translators Association Translation Prize. Unger teaches translation at the City College of New York and is the international representative for FIL.

The jury stated, “Unger’s writing contributes to the understanding of Guatemala’s current history by exploring it with clarity, whether through his novels or his stories.” Unger’s fiction has been published in the U.S., Guatemala, China, Taiwan, and Mexico, and many of his stories have appeared in anthologies and literary journals both here and abroad. This is the first time the prize has been given to a Guatemalan author living in the U.S.

Correction: An article in the spring edition of PW’s Books in Spanish supplement misstated that Santillana is the only publisher from Spain with U.S. offices. It neglected to mention that Spanish Publishers, with offices in Miami, is a U.S. partnership owned by five publishers from Spain: Ediciones Urano, Ediciones Obelisco, Editorial Sirio, Roca Editorial, and Ediciones B.