The forty-second edition of the Herralde novel prize, organized by Editorial Anagrama and endowed with 25,000 euros, brought as a novelty the ex aequo awarding of the prize to two authors, one Latin American and the other Spanish, after having declared the competition void. in 2022 alleging a lack of consensus within the jury.
This year, however, the jury composed of Aldo García (Antonio Machado bookstore, Madrid), Gonzalo Pontón Gijón, Marta Sanz, Juan Pablo Villalobos and the publisher Silvia Sesé chose to reward at the same time the Chilean Cynthia Rimsky and the Xita Rubert of Barcelona, for his novels clear and confusing And Key facts about Biscayne.
The jury first selected seven novels from among the 1,149 submitted for this prize during a first round, to finally decide on two titles which were to decide between the winning work and the finalist. But the decision went in the direction of awarding an equal prize to both novels and awarding the prize to both.
“Clear and Confusing” by Cynthia Rimsky
The first of the rewarded works is clear and confusing by Cynthia Rimsky. The work recounts the vicissitudes of a plumber in love, in a dependent and tortuous manner, with an artist, Clara, and in turn immersed in the corruption of the plumbers’ union to which he has just joined. In the words of Juan Pablo Villalobos, it is an “avant-garde romantic comedy” that leads us to ask a series of fundamental questions: “What is art? What is your mission? What is love? What is the potential of popular art?
For his part, Gonzalo Pontón Gijón stands out clear and confusing which “establishes a world of provinces as extravagant as the pipes that its protagonist takes care of, faithful and in love with a conceptual artist who is a heroine of denial”. And Marta Sanz assures that “it has been a long time since I had so much pleasure reflecting on the tragic and laughable state of literature”.
Cynthia Rimski (Santiago de Chile, 1962) lives in Argentina, where she is a professor at the National University of Arts in Buenos Aires and holds a writing degree at the Catholic University of Valparaíso. He received the Gabriela Mistral Prize for Literary Games in 1994, the Municipal Prize of Santiago in 2001 for Remaining positionin 2017 by The future is a strange place and in 2021 by The revolution at your fingertipsas well as the Award for Best Literary Work from the National Council of Culture of Chile in 2017 for The future is a strange place and the Prize for best literary work from the National Culture Council in 2023 for the novel Yomuri.
“The Facts of Key Biscayne” by Xita Rubert
The other winning work is Key facts about Biscayneby Xita Rubert, which, according to Anagrama, is “a detective novel and a book about the ambivalences of affection and memory”. The publisher also defines it as “a story equal parts tender, hilarious and disturbing that confirms the power of an unclassifiable author”.
For his part, Gonzalo Pontón Gijón defined it as “a rarefied story of adolescent desires processed by an adult mind”. Marta Sanz underlines that the novel is “a prodigious story about indirect violence at a time when we did not yet know what to call it” and adds: “Xita Rubert does it with a disturbing style which illuminates the most sympathetic, cultivated and magnet: the dark light that would nourish even Atticus Finch.
Finally, Juan Pablo Villalobos defines it as “a sticky novel in many ways: because of the heat of a Florida populated by eccentric characters, both endearing and exasperating; for the humid atmosphere in which the protagonist, a teenager fascinated by her father, must learn to breathe.
Xita Rubert (Barcelona, 1996) studied philosophy and literature in England. His first novel, My days with the Kopps (Anagrama, 2022), was selected among the best books of the year by the main Spanish media, was a finalist for the Premier Roman de Chambéry prize and has been translated into German and Portuguese. She is the daughter of the writer Luis Castro and the philosopher Xavier Rubert de Ventós.
