The Barcelona writer Cristina Fernández Cubas (Arenys de Mar, 1945) has been awarded the 2023 National Prize for Spanish Letters. The jury has highlighted the author “for the magic of her narrative that has led her to be considered one of the best Spanish storytellers. For the fascinating mastery of the use of concision to tell stories, which are nourished by fantastic literature, and which reaches the reader in an intense way until it changes the way of understanding things.
Likewise, the jury highlighted that the creator of My Sister Elba "is an unavoidable author who invites us to think about the limits between reality and fiction, an exquisite creator who always wanted to tell stories." The prize, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Sports, is endowed with 40,000 euros.
Cristina Fernández studied Law and Journalism in Barcelona, a profession she would later practice. She is one of the most prominent authors of the short story genre in Spain, and among her works are Los altillos de Brumal (1983), El angle del horror (1990), Con Agatha en Istanbul (1994) and Poor Relatives of the Devil (2006). ), with which he won the Setenil Award for Best Short Story Book Published in Spain. The compilation of most of these titles published in 2008 as All the Tales received the Ciutat de Barcelona Prize for Literature in the Spanish Language, the Salambó Prize for Narrative in Spanish and the Cálamo Book of the Year Prize.
The National Prize for Spanish Letters recognizes the entire literary work of a Spanish author, written in any of the Spanish languages, whose work is considered an integral part of the body of current Spanish literature. In the last editions the winners have been Bernardo Atxaga, Luis Mateo Díez, José María Merino and Luis Landero.
The jury for this edition was made up of the writers Paloma Díaz-Mas, Fanny Rubio and Carme Riera, the writer and president of the Royal Galician Academy Víctor Fernández Freixanes, the philologist and former Minister of Culture of the Basque government Miren Karmele Azkarate, the philologist Marc Mayer, the linguist Joan Rafael Ramos Alfajarín, the critic José María Pozuelo Yvancos, the Hispanist Irene Andres-Suárez, the journalist Magis Iglesias, the philosopher Alicia Miyares and the award-winning author in the 2022 call, Luis Landero.
