Night of strong emotions at the Planeta Award.
After the surprise he assumed that the awarding of the award to increase a million euros, thus becoming the world’s highest literary prize (surpassing even the Nobel of Literature), another Bombazo: This year’s Planeta Award is for Carmen Mola,
The best kept secret of the Spanish letters up to tonight.
A secret that this Friday has finally revealed: three men (and not a woman, just as it was thought) are behind the so-called “Elena Ferrante Española”: Agustín Martínez, Jorge Díaz and Antonio Mercero.
The three are scriptwriters, come from the world of television and are the architects six hands from the very violent novels starred by the Inspector Elena Blanco who have seduced tens of thousands of readers.
This Friday they have been made with a millionaire planet award that, yes, will have to be distributed: 333,333 euros for each one (half, by the way, of the 600,000 that were delivered until last year).
But who are Agustín Martínez, Jorge Díaz and Antonio Mercer?
Antonio Santos Mercero is the son of mythical filmmaker Antonio Mercer and one of the scriptwriters with the most trajectory on Spanish television: he began at the duty pharmacy after a few years dedicated to journalism and is one of the creators, along with Jorge Díaz, from Central Hospital.
He has also worked on wolves and Mir.
Agustín Martínez has been a scriptwriter without tits there is no paradise, the girl of yesterday, crematorium, the gift of Alba or Víctor Ros.
In 2015 he published his first novel, Monteperdido, who was adapted to television in 2018. That’s where the three coincided.
And Jorge Díaz is another veteran of the TV: coordinated the central hospital scripts for 12 years and has worked on the Don de Alba, blind to appointments, Víctor Ros and Acacias 38. He did not start writing until 2009, when he published the numbers of the
Elephant and his last novel (signed with his real name) is I have all the dreams of the world in me, about the shipwreck of the Prince of Asturias boat in 1916.
Of Carmen Mola just knew nothing. The discretion of the three screenwriters has managed to maintain the mystery for years. She was saying that she was a woman, Madrid, mother of three children (now we know that she actually has three parents) and that the Hanska literary agency was represented, in whose team is also figure Antonio Merpero Santos. Compared with Pierre Lemaitre and Alicia Giménez Bartlett, Carmen Mola appeared as an unidentified object in the Spanish black panorama and in three years published three novels: The Gypsy Bride (2018), the Purple Network (2019) and the Babe (2020) Readers captivated readers by their particular crudity and brutality. Total sales of books, translated into eight countries, have reached 250,000 copies and rights for television adaptation has bought atresmedia, which belongs to the planet group. The three are starring by Ellen White, an inspector of the case analysis brigade and are not suitable for sensitive readers.
The winning novel, written six hands, is titled Beast and is set in Madrid in 1834, with an epidemic of cholera in the background.
It is a thriller that revolves around a wave of murders to girls from the humblest classes.
A journalist, a policeman and a girl come together to catch the serial killer, who dismembered girls.
“Carmen Mola is not, like all the lies we have been counting, an institute teacher, we are three friends that a day four years ago we decided to unite our talent to tell a story,” explained Jorge Díaz.
Mercero advanced more details of the novel: “In Madrid of 1834 there was also an epidemic, of cholera, and it is not so far from today as we may seem, the population had to face many restrictions.”
In a city of coffee conspiracies and Carlist wars have placed the winners of the planet a novel that defines as “a hybrid between the thriller and the historical novel”.
“The three of us have lost our parents and we dedicate the prize,” added Martínez.
That the authors behind Carmen Mola have won the planet supposes a blow for the competition, the Penguin Random House, where the Mola phenomenon has been gestated and sold more than 150,000 copies, becoming one of the great Gestsellers of the Group and
Blackland literature.
It is not the first time that the knives fly on the night of the planet between the two large editorial conglomerates: two years ago, in 2019, planet stole from its rather direct competitor to the two winners of the prize, Javier Fences and Manuel Vilas, who until
Then they published in Penguin.
The dispute between the two groups is hard: Between both copies more than 67% Spanish market (in fiction for adults) and in recent years they have embarked on a process of buying small and medium publishers that have resulted in a high concentration
From the book business in Spain.
At the moment, on the Random House web continues to appear Carmen Mola as an author of the house and announced the publication of his next novel, the fourth installment of the saga starred by Elena Blanco, titled Mothers, for the spring of 2022
.
The gala, held in the Oval Room of the National Museum of Art of Catalonia with 600 guests, was a re-entry in normality in many aspects: not only by the celebration itself, but by the return of the Kings of Spain to the ceremony.
They did not attend since 2016, before the Proceder, who took the planet group to move its social headquarters and its tax domicile from Barcelona to Madrid.
They accompanied them by the Minister of Culture Miquel Iceta, the Minister of Education Pilar Alegría, the Mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau and on behalf of the Generalitat, the consulpture of culture Núria Garriga.
La Gala also served to stage the reconciliation of civil society in Catalonia with the Crown: the kings were applauded upon arrival at dinner and the president of planet, José Creuheras praised his dedication and ordered an extra applause that put the majority of
The Oval Room of the MNAC on foot, even to Mayor Ada Colau and the Conseller of Culture, the only two who declined to applaud, despite the fact that they got up.
The jury consisting of José Manuel Blecua, Fernando Delgado, Juan Slava Galán, Pere Gimferrer, Carmen Posadas, Rosa Regàs and Belén López also awarded the manuscript presented under the titer of the wrath of the writer Paloma Sánchez-Garnica, which was finalist and
You will have the final title of last days in Berlin.
It is a historical novel-river starring a young man who tries to rediscover with his mother and the younger brother after being separated by the Leninist regime.
A book that transports the reader for the European key events of the twentieth century (there is a stop in Nazi Germany) with “very skilled subframes”, according to Slava Galán.
Paloma Sánchez-Garnica (Madrid, 1962) picked up the visibly excited prize.
Last days in Berlin, the finalist novel, is the eighth of the writer.
“It deals with the consequences of totalitarianisms in everyday life,” said Sánchez-Garnica, which has been inspired by Primo Levi, Stefan Zweig and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to write a story that crosses the rise of Nazism and Stalinism and dive into ‘
The courage needed to face and even overcome death. ‘
The finalist is a degree in Law and Geography and History.
He is an author of the house, where he has been publishing three lustrians: hers are titles like the great arcane, the breeze of the East, the soul of the stones and the three injuries. His consecration came with the sonata of silence, from which it was done
An adaptation for a series in TVE.
In 2016 she won with my memory is stronger than you forgot the Novel Prize Fernando Lara 2016. She’s last novel is titled The suspicion of Sofia.
