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Reyes Calderón, wins the IV Lawyer Award for Novels

The Antonia Kerrigan Literary Agency wishes to congratulate the author Reyes Calderón for winning this year’s IV Edition Lawyer Award for Novels. On the 1st of March the panel of judges comprised of writers; Lorenzo Silva, Silvia Grijalba, Maxim Huerta andNativel Preciado as well as José Calabrús Lara (voice of the Governing Board, president of the Benefits Committee and Vice-President of the Legal Funds Foundation) and Carmen Fernández de Blas (Editorial director for Ediciones Martínez Roca, Grupo Planeta); ruled unanimously that the winner of this year’s edition is the novel; “El jurado número 10” (Trial Number 10) by Reyes Calderón “In this book, the trial has been highlighted, it’s fantastic literary factor, it’s easy comprehension, the ability to surprise the reader, in an extraordinarily armed plot and that with a sense of humor provides a vision of the ups and downs of the legal system from the point of view of a small office.” Reyes Calderón has published seven novels among those stands out the saga featuring the judge Lola Machor with: “The Last Patient of Doctor Wilson”, “The Prime Number Crimes”, “The Canaima File” and “The Revenge of the Pare Murderer.” El jurado número 10 (Trail Number 10) will be published by the Editorial Planeta (Martínez Roca) the 9th of April. More information (in Spanish): Más noticias: Diario ABC Europa Press Diario de Navarra Planeta de Libros - Noticias

The writer and academic José María Merino has been awarded the 2021 National Prize for Spanish Letters for “his mastery and excellence in the creation of fantastic literature in the narrative modalities of novels, short novels, short stories and short stories”. The jury highlighted “the intelligence of his theoretical reflections on fiction” and stressed that José María Merino “is a benchmark for successive generations”.

Alcalá, Fernando

Fernando Alcalá Suárez (Cáceres, 1980) loves nothing more than telling stories and consuming them, whether in books, TV series, movies, or video games. Although he prefers to live among elves and dragons, life has forced him to pretend to be an adult, and today he teaches English at a high school in Cáceres. He has three cats: Melon, Pineapple, and Lychee. He won the VII Iberian Cultural Prize for Young Artists in the literature category, an international competition for Spanish-speaking artists of all nationalities. Among other achievements, he has received the Extremadura Creation Grant three times, which encouraged him to write Ne obliviscaris and Summer Storm (Edelvives, 2010 and 2011), as well as Carlos, Paula, and Company, which took second place in the I HQÑ Contest and was published by Harper Collins Ibérica in 2013. Together with Geòrgia Costa, forming the Costa Alcalá duo, he won the Kelvin 505 and El Templo de las Mil Puertas awards with Heir, the first volume of The Second Revolution trilogy (Montena, Penguin Random House, 2017, 2018, and 2019). They have also written Good Sisters (Elastic Books, 2019) and the Prodigies series, three standalone novels set in the same universe, published by Nocturna Editorial between 2020 and 2022. Additionally, they are the authors of the children’s series Look Out, Lice (Montena, 2019 and 2020) and several novels published on Fiction Express, such as Journey to the Center of the Volcano, which won the readers’ choice award for best children’s novel on the platform in 2022. In autumn 2023, they published their first novel for adults, The Hunter’s Moon (Umbriel Editores), and in June 2024 Orphans of the Wanderer (Puck Editorial), the first part of Shadowweavers, a duology whose second volume will be released in Spain and Latin America in the first quarter of 2025. That same year, they will launch Nessa, Princess with Animallibres, Bromera, and Algar, a series of graphic novels for early readers. And that’s all for now... Fer has many projects underway, both with Geòrgia Costa and on his own, but he still can’t talk about them.

Una tumba en el aire

On the night of March 24, 1973, three young Spaniards, Humberto, Fernando and Jorge, crossed the French border to go to Biarritz to see the The Last Tango in Paris, a film banned at that time in Franco's Spain. It is known that on that night they entered a nightclub and that a cruel fate awaited them there. Mistaken for policemen by a group of ETA members, they were kidnapped, tortured and killed. They were never heard from again. Their bodies never found. But there was always a weak point. This novel is inspired by real events and it narrates, with scrupulous verisimilitude, the story of that fateful encounter. Written with an overwhelming narrative pulse, Adolfo García Ortega recounts in it the truncated lives of those youngsters and their executioners, while portraying the social and political atmosphere that existed in 1973 in the south of France, where terrorists, considered gudaris (soldiers) of a revolutionary chimera, were preparing to intervene bloodily in Spain's dictatorship. An accurate and moving novel, in the tradition of Truman Capote and Graham Greene, A Tomb in the Air is a masterful literary work that leaves the reader shaken. Its author, in these pages, as he has done in other novels of his, does not avoid justice or tenderness and opens the door to a possible truth about events that were never clarified.

Camino, Abril

Abril Camino was born in A Coruña in 1980. Her passion for literature led her to earn degrees in the philology of two languages, to devour stories tirelessly, and to work for years surrounded by books. However, one day she discovered that creating her own characters and plots was what truly made her happy. Since then, she has been glued to her laptop keyboard. She is the author of more than fifteen novels, always blending elements of romance, narrative fiction, and sentimental fiction. Strong women, deep emotions, and a recognizable style are the hallmarks that attract readers to her books. Some of her most notable novels include Our Last Summer on the Island, Olivia's Request, and Yesterday, Us, and an Impossible Tomorrow.

Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez was named yesterday the winner of the 2017 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world’s highest literary honor. Ramírez has written more than 20 novels, including “Margarita, está linda la mar” (Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea), which won Spain’s prestigious Alfaguara award in 1998. His work has been widely translated.  He has also received Spain's Dashiel Hammet Award, France's Laure Bataillon Award, Cuba's José María Arguedas Latinamerican Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the José Donoso Prize in 2011. A Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of France, and a doctor honoris causa of Blaise Pascal University (France), he is also recipient of the International Award for Human Rights awarded by the Bruno Kreisky Foundation, and the Order of Merit of the Federal Government of Germany. An active journalist, Ramirez was deputy vice president of Nicaragua between 1984 and 1990 when he abandoned politics and became a full time writer.

Canción de antiguos amantes

  LAURA RESTREPO'S NEW NOVEL A double love story in a world on the verge of collapse, by the winner of the Alfaguara Awards, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Grinzane Cavour. "Every myth that is born is reborn. Every myth that incarnates reincarnates." Obsessed with the Queen of Sheba, Bos Mutas, a young contemporary writer, sets out on a journey around the world to find her, just as historical figures of the likes of Solomon, Thomas Aquinas and Gérard de Nerval had done over the centuries. And although the Queen of Sheba is elusive, Bos Mutas finds in her place the very earthy Zahra Bayda, a Somali midwife. Thus, the real time of the present runs parallel to the immemorial time of the myth. A work of fiction based on the author's travels through the lands of Yemen, Ethiopia and the Somali border—the magical and fierce geography of what was once the kingdom of Saba—, with Doctors Without Borders. This novel is a beautiful kaleidoscope, a gateway to fascinating worlds, a daring amalgamation of genres, eras, secular and biblical rhythms, cruelty and solidarity, love and war, pain and healing. Laura Restrepo accompanies, with this moving story, the eternal journey of migrant women, who despite tripping and stumbling, get up, keep going, learn to look further and further ahead and cross the borders of time and space. Song of Ancient Lovers sketches a seductive proposal: what if the great anthem of the end of time is not the Apocalypse? What if it was the Song of Songs instead?   The critics have said: "When the level of writing reaches as far as Laura Restrepo took it, you must doff your hat." Joseph Saramago "Her fascination with popular culture and her impeccable humor [...] spare her novels any temptation toward pathos or melodrama and instill unmistakable reading pleasures." Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Red Moon

"When the moon is full and has a red halo inside, a terrible crime will be committed that night." Madrid, 1954. Young Margot Sanz Peters returns to Spain after studying fashion journalism in London. As a member of a distinguished family of diplomats and a close friend of the most elegant ladies of the time—from Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart to Aline Griffith, the future Countess of Romanones—Margot quickly gains access to the most exclusive circles in a city moving beyond the worst years of the post-war era and beginning to embrace modernity. But Margot is much more than a fashion expert. A voracious reader of Sherlock Holmes novels, she's been fascinated by the criminal mind since childhood. So when the mysterious murder of a marquise shakes Madrid’s high society, she seizes the opportunity to join the most popular crime magazine of the time and begins collaborating with the police, testing her investigative skills in an increasingly dangerous game. In this novel that weaves glamour with threads of mystery, Nieves Herrero introduces us to a sharp-witted journalist trying to solve a series of murders in the captivating Spain of the 1950s. A true homage to the golden age of crime reporting.

María Dueñas takes us, in her new novel La Templanza, to the young Mexican republic, the colonial Havana and the Jerez of the second half of the nineteenth-century.

After being translated into more than thirty-five languages and sold over 5,000,000 copies worldwide with her previous novels, El tiempo entre costuras and Misión Olvido, Maria Dueñas returns with La Templanza, a novel that speaks of glories and defeats, of silver mines, family intrigues, vineyards, cellars and splendid cities whose grandeur faded in time. With a first print-run of 500,000 copies in Spanish language, La Templanza will be the main title by Editorial Planeta this spring. Watch the booktrailer. Photo: María Dueñas in the González Byass cellars.

Costa, Geòrgia

Geòrgia Costa Villaró (Tarragona, 1984) holds degrees in History and Classical Archaeology from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, since the only thing she enjoys almost as much as writing stories is hearing them. She writes children’s and middle-grade books, including the recent Ada Tormentas series: Something’s Up with Ada Tormentas (Salamandra, 2024) and Ada Tormentas is Up to Something (Salamandra, 2024). She also writes children's non-fiction, such as 22 Mysteries of History (Montena, 2015) and the illustrated bestiary Monsters of the World (Montena, 2018). Together with Fernando Alcalá, with whom she forms the writing duo Costa Alcalá, she won the Kelvin 505 Award and the El Templo de las Mil Puertas Award with the novel Heir, the first volume of The Second Revolution trilogy (Montena, Penguin Random House, 2017, 2018, and 2019). They have also written Good Sisters (Elastic Books, 2019) and Prodigies, a series of three standalone novels set in the same universe, published by Nocturna between 2020 and 2022. Additionally, they are the authors of the children's series Look Out, Lice (Montena, 2019 and 2020) and several novels published on Fiction Express, such as Journey to the Center of the Volcano, which won the readers’ choice award for the best children's novel on the platform in 2022. In autumn 2023, they published their first novel for adults, The Hunter’s Moon (Umbriel Editores), and in June 2024 Orphans of the Wanderer (Puck Editorial), the first part of Shadowweavers, a duology whose second volume will be released in Spain and Latin America in the first quarter of 2025. That same year, they will launch Nessa, Princess, a series of graphic novels for early readers, to be published by Animallibres, Bromera, and Algar. And that’s all... for the time being. Fer has many projects underway, both with Geòrgia Costa and on his own, but we’ll have to wait until he’s allowed to talk about them.

Laura Freixas recovers 4 of her most revered works in digital format

Four of the novels by the author, professor and lecturer Laura Freixas, have been recovered in digital format and can been found for sale on Amazon. The novels include Entre Amigas (Between Friends), originally published 1998, Amor o lo que sea (Love, a Reader) (2005), Adolescencia en Barcelona hacia 1970, (Adolescence in Barcelona around 1970) published in 2007 and Cuentos a los 40, (Stories at Forty) (2001). One of the titles; Amor o lo que sea, can also now and for the first time be found in English, with the title Love, a Reader. It was translated by Pamela J. DeWeese, translator, writer and professor.  With the inauguration of these works by Laura Freixas, Amazon is offering the opportunity to download free of charge but only on the 16th and 17th of January, the title Amor o lo que sea in both Spanish and English language versions. Here are the links: - Love, a Reader - Amor o lo que sea

Galán, Jorge

He has published narrative works in various genres, from historical novels such as November (Planeta MX 2015; Tusquets, 2016) and The Room at the Back of the House (Planeta MX, 2016), to children’s books like The Invisibles (Loqueleo, 2024), The Other Worlds (Alfaguara Children, 2010), and The Unexpected Prize (Alfaguara Children, 2008). Recently, he completed the young adult fantasy trilogy The Land of Mist (Océano Gran Travesía, 2020, 2021, 2022). In poetry, he has published Liquid Apocalypse (Pre-textos), Noise (Pre-textos), Midnight of the World (Visor), The Circle (Visor), The Overflowing Pond (Visor), The City (Pre-textos), and Brief History of Dawn (Rialp), among others. He has won numerous awards, including the José Emilio Pacheco Prize at the Guadalajara International Book Fair for the poetry collection Equinox; the Royal Spanish Academy Prize in 2016 for the novel November; the Casa de América Prize for American Poetry, Madrid 2016; the Ibero-American Jaime Sabines Award for Published Work in Mexico, 2012; the Antonio Machado International Prize, Madrid, 2009; the Adonais Prize, Madrid, 2006; and the national prize in his country for both poetry and short novels, among others. He has participated in numerous literary events, fairs, and presentations in various countries, mostly in the United States, including universities, institutes, public libraries, and even a reading at the Library of Congress in 2018. His novels have been translated into various languages and published by renowned houses such as Penguin Random House, Little Brown, Psichogios, and Mondadori, among others.

Sergio Ramírez was awarded the Carlos Fuentes International Prize

Tuesday November 11th, Sergio Ramírez was awarded the Carlos Fuentes International Prize for Creative Writing given by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM ) and the National Council for Culture and Arts (CONACULTA). The members of the jury were Juan Goytisolo, Mario Vargas Llosa (Nobel Prize and also awarded the first edition of this Prize), Soledad Puértolas, Margo Glantz and Gonzalo Celorio, who chose Sergio Ramirez for "Combining a high quality literature with a committed literature and its role as a free and critical intellectual  with a civic high calling ". He has published over 50 titles in various genres such as novels, short stories, essays, and memoirs. His work has been translated into more than 15 languages ​​and he has been awarded with the Dashiel Hammett Prize in 1990 for Castigo Divino (Divine Punishment), the Laure Bataillon Award in 1998 for the best foreign translated book into French for Un baile de máscaras (A mask dance), the Alfaguara International Prize, 1998, for Margarita está linda la mar (Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea), and the José Donoso Prize granted by the University of Talca, Chile. It´s an honor for the Antonia Kerrigan Literary Agency to represent this icon of Ibero-American literature.

Romero, Esmeralda

Esmeralda Romero is a writer specializing in romance novels, born in Madrid. In 2020, she self-published her first novel One More Turn Around the Sun, which opens the Firmament series, also composed of The Moon Knows Your Name (2020) and The Sky Is Only the Beginning (2021). In 2022, she decided to follow her passion for medical dramas and wrote a romance novel set in a hospital: To See You Smile.

Rufo, Arantxa

Arantxa Rufo, born in Madrid in 1979, but a resident of Tenerife since 1980, initially pursued a degree in Sound Engineering, though her career eventually shifted towards the fields of IT and graphic design.She has self-published four crime novels and contributed to the Tenerife Noir Anthology of Stories (2024). A frequent participant in Tenerife Noir and Las Palmas Confidencial crime fiction festivals, she is also a regular presence in media outlets, both on the Canary Islands and the Spanish mainland.

Cladia Amengual publishes "El rap de la morgue y otros cuentos" ("The Rap of the Morgue and Other Stories")

The Uruguayan writer, translator and journalist Claudia Amengual has recently published El rap de la morgue y otros cuentos (The Rap of the Morgue and Other Stories). The book, the first collection of short stories she publishes after having written novels, biographies and journalistic pieces, appeared in the United States in La Pereza Ediciones, and gathers texts written between 2001 and 2012. Tense and threatening, filled with lonely and defeated characters, death runs through all the stories, as well as the consequences of the crisis that hit Uruguay at the beginning of the century. In an interview published in El Nuevo Herald, Amengual covers all these topics, comments on the book and how it fits among her other titles and explains the differences between writing a novel or short fiction. 

Interview with Luis Artigueauthor of The Sorbonne Club

Realized for Alianza Editoral, April 2013. The Sorbonne Club is a essentially humoristic novel. In times of crisis are you looking for an escape through humor? We have to be careful with humor that, in some way, it’s always included in whatever we do, whether we are in times of crisis or calm, it’s the medicine that synthesizes our bodies with the will to keep fighting, to live and to add life to life. However there is no doubt that in times of crisis humor is conductive for challenges and for a desire to Excel. This is why I, aware that I owed my birth place a novel, and also that, as was written by Valle-Inclán, in literature the most difficult writing tasks are humor and lyrical poetry. So I gave myself the challenge to write a novel that had a lot of humor, some poetry, a smidgen autobiographical and with a high level of invention. What literary or cultural references were the most important during the concept of the novel? The Sorbonne Club proposes something impossible: find the least common multiple denominator between the schemes of Agatha Christies enigmatic novels, the magnetic humor of John Kennedy Toole and Eduardo Mendoza, the rooted and timeless worlds of Miguel Torga and Antonio Pereira, the realism mixed with fantastic impregnations of Julio Cortázar and José María Merino and the dramatic poetry of Valle-Inclán… Yes, this novel proposes to fail marvelously. The alternate Globetrotters, the psychology, alternative medicine, pedagogy, the theater, a dectivesque investigation and Mozart… How does one relate and combine all of these elements at once? Linda Hutcheon, the prestigious literary theorist and professor at the University of Toronto, in her novel Post-modernist Poetry, defined as one of the primary characteristics of postmodern fiction being parody and pastiche structure (both of which are very useful while describing the world today). In fact we are living in dizzying times where reality seems to be substituted for the present and these type of times aren’t derived from decantation only form accumulation. This is why, in my opinion, the novel of today, like life today, shouldn’t present a theme but rather arguably attend to this diversity and multiplicity that conforms our identity and our day to day…. In this case the mortar that relates and combines these themes is humor, understood as a refined invitation to prudent drunkenness… Or maybe not so prudent. The novel creates a very particular world that you are very familiar with. How much of this was based on real events? I was born and raised with peaceful idealism in the frame that this novel occurs however, I have represented it as I see it reflected in the mirrors of a grotesque alley… It’s like taking the basic nature of someone and distorting it and augmenting it. It’s like dissimulating auto fiction. In The Sorbonne Club many different kinds of characters appear and disappear, do you have any special memories of a concrete character? The teacher Mrs. Enriqueta- a homage of sorts to rural teachers from the Free Institution of Education- she is one of my favorite characters from this book, followed very closely by a studded soul healer and named Arnau. In both, along with a moving interest for the others and for the other, there is an aspect that interests me very much: they have created an austerity that is terribly seductive. The story uses a very elaborate language mixing the cultured with popular, was it complicated to write and mix these different registers? This mixture represented, overall, in the confrontation between victorianism and the English detective Mr. Tatel with the prostates and the rude locals, I believe that they don’t manifestate so much in the narrative in itself as much as in the dialogues. It’s possible that a writer is in essence a listener of voices. The contrasts in the voices of this novel are funny because most of them come from listening or that haven’t lost their freshness. In fact, observing the dedectuve and wandering investigator, Mr. Tatel, night after night and in brothel after brothel, the reader can discover that so called English humor but in reality, the English don’t have a sense of humor: it’s just the way they are and we find it funny. Will you “revisit” the universo of Violincia in the future? I hope so! But whatever happens what I really want is to always be engaged in a creative fight with a certain amount of dementia.

The best from 2012 in El Cultural supplement magazine

Years end has arrived and with it the various best books lists. The literary critics from the supplement magazine El Cultural from the El Mundo newspaper have voted the best fiction works published over these last 12 months by Spanish and Latin-American authors. The eight professionals from said newspaper have selected their favorite books in order of preference and with which they could rate each of the publications and thus creating their list of the 10 best fiction novels of the year. This year we are pleased to discover at the head of the list the author José María Merino with his latest novel; El río del Edén, (The river from Eden). Ángel Basanta, critic from the cultural supplement notes in his review of the novel; “in El Río del Edén, Merino has completed another gran novel, with a love story various senses (matrimony, father-con, mother-child…), constructed with a good dose of intrigue”. Within the critics selection we also find other works by authors represented by our literary agency; "La tejedora de sombras" (The Shadow Weaver) by Jorge Volpi. "Pasajero K" (Passenger K) by Adolfo García Ortega. More information (in Spanish): Lista completa en El Cultural Votaciones de los críticos Entrevista a José María Merino

La luz difícil by Tomás González, number 1 in the LitProm (Germany) selection

La luz difícil (The Difficult Light), by Tomás González (Das spröde Licht, S.Fischer Verlage) occupies the number 1 spot in the recommendations list of the Litprom Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Literatur aus Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika (Litprom, Association for the Promotion of African, Asian and Latin-American Literature). Litprom is an association that was founded in Frankfurt in 1980 during the world renowned Frankfurt book fair, who’s policy is: To monitor literary trends and select from the best books by African, Asian and Latin-American writers with the intention to help translate them in German and/or the promotion of these works in the German, Austrian and Swiss markets. To coordinate a center for the investigation and information of the development of literature in the countries of the 3 regions. To establish and guide a round table debate over literature in and from “Third World” countries. The classification of “La luz difícil” in this list is great news regarding the quality and importance of this association, and for the support that the selected novels receive for the promotion in German speaking markets. The Association describes González’ novel as clear, precise and enjoyable, in that the protagonist faces many questions and memories with both caution and distress. For more information about Litprom Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Literatur aus Afrika. Asien und Lateinamerika e.V. (in English): http://www.litprom.de/about_us.html

Dueñas and Palma nominated for the IMPAC Dublin

In the 12th of November the list of nominated novels was presented for the; “Internacional IMPAC Dublín Literary Award, 2013”. The list, containing 154 titles sellected by public libaries from 120 cities in 44 countries and 19 languages, will compete for one of the most international literary awards. Among the selected include; “El tiempo entre costuras” (The Seamstress/ The Time Between) by María Dueñas and “El mapa del tiempo” (The map of Time) by Félix J. Palma The selected titles are considered novels of high literary quality. The list of finalists (maximum 10 titles) will be made public in April 2013 and the winner, will be selected by an international group of five judges. We are anxiously awaiting April to learn the results of this selection. In the meantime we congratulate both in-house authors for this grand acknowledgement.

Carlos Gamerro a guest from the “Edinburgh World Writers´Conference 2012-2013″

Conference: THE ANATOMY OF DESOLATION Monday 20 August 8:30pm - 9:30pm RBS Corner Theatre Carlos Gamerro is a leading voice in Argentinian literature and his new novel The Islands recounts the surreal story of the Falklands War from one Argentinian perspective. Alongside him, László Krasznahorkai discusses his Hungarian masterpiece Satantango, which was described by Susan Sontag as 'a stirring manual of resistance to desolation'. This summer it is finally published in English – a long-awaited landmark in literature. Carlos Gamerro & László Krasznahorkai “The anatomy of desolation” Edinburgh International Book Festival Edinburgh World Writers´Conference 2012-2013   ‘Gamerro's balls-out novel is a delirious mash-up ... [His] gross, bleakly funny, violence-saturated satire of a psychologically damaged society hung up on impossible myth relies on epic hyperbole, masterfully translated by Ian Barnett. There is enough invention here for four novels, but this multilayered nightmare vision is deftly rendered and devastating in its intensity.’ (Siobhan Murphy, Metro UK). Image from Siobhan Murphy´s article in the newspaper "Metro"