Paula Carballeira Cabana (A Coruña, 1972) has won this Friday the 2023 National Prize for Dramatic Literature, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and which is endowed with 30,000 euros. The jury has highlighted her work, As alumnas (Editorial Galaxia), for being "a praise of the teaching profession that teaches about doubt and debate. For its dramatic values, the richness of nuances and for the recovery of a woman who is a reference for teaching Galician, symbol of the modern, egalitarian and transformative education that the Second Republic proposed”.
It has also valued how "the author, through rigorous research, proposes to the public a text that pays tribute to all teachers and to the model of a secular, free school with advanced pedagogy."
With As Alumnas, the writer seeks to defend the work of teachers who fought for education and equality in Galicia. She does it by the hand of two protagonists, Elvira Fontao and Rosa Lires, former students of María Barbeito, who meet again as adults due to the death of her teacher.
Carballeira has lived in Santiago de Compostela since 1989, where he studied Hispanic Philology. She writes children's and youth stories and belongs to the Berrobambán theater company. In 2006 she was the first winner of the Manuel María Prize for Children's Dramatic Literature, an award created by IGAEM, for her work Buenas noches, and in 2011 she won the Manuel María Prize for Children's Dramatic Literature for O refugallo. She has published various works, including Olo-iepu-iepu (1999), La era de Lázaro (2004), Contatrás (2006), El hombre wolf de Candeán (2009) or Los otros cuentos (2011), among others. .
In its last edition, the award recognized Josep Maria Miró Coromina, joining a long list of winners, including Pablo Remón, Guillem Clua, Alberto Conejero, Yolanda García Serrano, Alfredo Sanzol, Juan Mayorga and Angélica Liddell, among others.
The jury was chaired by María José Gálvez Salvador, General Director of Books, Comics and Reading at the Ministry of Culture and Sports; and as vice president, Almudena Hernández de la Torre Chicote, deputy general director of the General Sub-directorate for the Promotion of Spanish Books, Reading and Letters of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, has acted.
