Ferran García says he is in his lucky week. And not only because this Friday night he won the award for best original work in Catalan, awarded by the 42 Fantastic Genres Festival. But because “my mother fell from the balcony, but she is fine. And, by the way, I want to dedicate it to him.” The author has thanked both the public and the jury, and his own mother, for the prize, which they have awarded him for Guilleries (Males Herbes), a formative novel set in the 19th century that talks about guilt and redemption and which continues Boi, a young man who is forced to separate from his family after discovering a trail of blood.
The jury has highlighted “the ability to elevate our popular imagination to the category of myth” and recognizes that it is a story “that takes you to the precipice of human nature” and that “could win any prize at the Sitges Festival.
The same award, in the Spanish category, went to Santiago Eximeno for Lancolía (Dilatando Mentes). “I am irrelevant, just like my life. And this book is very pessimistic. But thanks to this you have given me a memorable moment and it is worth it,” he confessed, to the surprise of the public. The Madrid writer sets his novel in a city that is a ship and sails in absolute darkness towards the red planet.
The jury members describe the work as a “literary journey through the author's mind and his ideas about faith and society. "It is our society reflected in the mirror of cosmic horror."
This year's revelation awards were given to two women, Roser Cabré and Marina Tena Tena, in Catalan and Spanish, respectively. Since he arrived in bookstores, Aioua (Males Herbes) has brought many joys to Roser as he also awarded her the Finestres prize for fiction in Catalan. In her pages, the writer invites the reader to travel with Rut to an American motel where all kinds of lonely and broken women coexist, with whom she will little by little establish bonds.
For its part, Nos devoró la fog (Insólita), has as its protagonist Claudia, a young woman who lives in Fresneda, a town where people sometimes disappear. She is the only survivor of the group of twenty-five children who went on a hike and vanished into the fog. The jury highlighted its "exploration of collective trauma that uncovers the social implications of monsters in rural areas"
Rosa Fabregat, who was not able to attend the gala but did say hello in a nice video, received the Honorary Award "for being one of the pioneers of Catalan science fiction, opening doors and promoting the first steps of the genre in our country".
In the category of best youth work, L’Hereu de la mort (Obscura), by Albert Font, and Fantasmas de verde jade (Obscura), by Víctor Sellés, won the award. While,
Imago (Mai Més), by Octavia E. Butler, has become the best classic translated into Catalan thanks to the work of Ernest Riera. Finally, the best work translated into Catalan has been The Fifth Station (La Terra Fragmentada I), by N. K. Jemisin (Mai Més). And in Spanish, The sea of tranquility (Ático), by Emily St. John Mandel, with the translation of Aitana Vega.
