Sergio Vila-Sanjuán Nadal Novel Award 2013
08/01/2013The Nadal Novel Award is a literary award for the best in-edit work selected by the publishing house, Ediciones Destino (a sub-label of the Grupo Planeta). Its notoriety is established as the oldest literary award granted in Spain and in the category of the writers who have been acknowledged with this prestige are important Spanish literary figures from the 20th century. This year the winner of the 69th edition of the Nadal Awards is the journalist and writer Sergio Vila-Sanjuán for his novel Estaba en el aire, (It was in the air), which will be published by Ediciones Destino on the 12th of February. The novel takes place in Barcelona at the beginning of the 60’s when the “consumer society” was born, it narrates the story of four characters who converge in a clenching ending. It’s true, that his first novel; Una heredera de Barcelona (2010), (An heiress of Barcelona), also passes in Barcelona, in the 20’s and part of the narrations are of his grandfather. Estaba en el aire, describes Barcelona at the beginning of the 60’s and is inspired by memories of his father and of his childhood. “I come from a family of three generations of journalists, but they didn’t write about their lives only about the lives of others. Mi first novel narrates a moment of my grandfather’s career and of my father. I believe that, one day, I’ll end up writing about myself, but first I preferred to pass through my family tree .” (El Pais, 8, January 2013).
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Berman, Sabina
Mexico Sabina Berman was initially recognized as a playwright, four time winner of the National Theatre of Mexico Award along with a dozen critics’ awards. Berman inaugurates a new work practically every two years in Mexico and her works have been toured extensively within the country and in Canada, USA, Central-America and South-America. To mention a few; Entre Pancho Villa y una mujer desnuda (Between Pancho Villa and a Naked Woman, 1992); Muerte súbita (Sudden Death), Moliére, Feliz nuevo siglo doktor Freud (Happy New Century Doctor Freud); eXtras. She has also worked in cinema. Entre Pancho Villa y una mujer desnuda (Between Pancho Villa and a Naked Woman, 1992), co-directed by Berman and Isabelle Tardan, was translated to celluloid in 1994 and represented Mexico in the Oscars that year. El árbol de la música (The Music Tree, 1995), also co-directed by Berman and Isabell Tardan also represented Mexico in the Oscars. Backyard (2009) written by Sabina Berman, produced by Tardan/ Berman and directed by Carlos Carrera, won various international awards, among them; Habana Film Festival and the silver metal in the Film Festival in Toronto as well as several “Ariels”, award delegated by the Mexican Academy of Arts and Cinema. She is considered as one of the most esteemed playwrights by the public and critics of Mexico. In prose she has written two short books and two journalistic chronicles: Un grano de arroz (A Grain of Rice) and La bobe (The bobe). Democracia cultural (Cultural Democracy) and Un soplo en el corazón de la Patria (A Murmer in the Heart of the Nation). From 2006 she is a columnist for the influential weekly magazine Proceso and for the two most prestigious literary magazines in Mexico; Letras Libres and Nexos. Sabina also presents a weekly talk show, Shalalá, interviewing cultural personalities on television. She has also been two time winner of the National Journalist Award. From 2009 she has been writing a screenplay for the director Alejandro González Iñarritu (Babel, Biutiful). La mujer que buceó dentro del corazón del mundo (The Woman Who Dove into the Heart of the World, Ediciones Destino 2010) is her first novel.
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