Álvaro Pombo, Cervantes Prize: “I will not deny that I wanted it, but I did not expect it at all”

The writer Álvaro Pombo (Santander, 1939) has been awarded the Cervantes Prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture, considered the most important literary prize in the Spanish Language. endowed with 125,000 euros. At around seven in the afternoon, the Minister of Culture Ernest Urtasun announced the jury’s decision, which in this 49th edition has chosen the author for “his extraordinary creative personality, his unique lyrics and his original narration“, pointed out the minister, who continued explaining that the writer “enjoys a very notable level as a poet and essayist, which is combined with being one of the great novelists of our language, who investigates the human condition from the emotional perspectives of deep and contradictory feelings“.

“I’m not going to deny that I wanted this award, but I really didn’t expect it at all,” Pombo exclaims into the phone just before confessing that he is about to go to the dentist. “When the minister told me that they had granted it to me, I was very happy. The truth is that I didn’t even think about itand if I thought about it, I believed that any of the other authors that were talked about, from here or from Latin America, who are all magnificent, like Leonardo Padura“, he highlights.

His reaction, he recreates for EL MUNDO, was direct and spontaneous, as oral and popular as many of his pages: “‘What a joy you have given me, minister,’ is what I told him, laughing.. And it’s the truth, I have been very sincere,” acknowledges the writer, complaining, as lately, about the ailments of age. “I’m just going to have my teeth looked at because I’m old, little more than for bodywork and paint.“.

An everlasting world

Considered as one of the innovators of subjective realism – a technique that he defines as psychology-fiction and that The deep psychological analysis of the characters in his novels is reflected in it.– and based in Madrid for decades, Pombo has obtained recognitions such as the Herralde Award by The Mansard Mansard Hero (1983), the National Fiction Award by where the women (1997), the José Manuel Lara Foundation Award by The ceiling (2001), he Planet Award by The fortune of Matilda Turpin (2006), the Nadal Award by The hero’s tremor (2012), the Santander Honorary Prize for Literature (2018), the Menéndez Pelayo International Prize (2023) or the Francisco Umbral Award to the Book of the Year 2023 for his historical and family novel Santander, 1936.

For this same book he received the Madrid Critics’ Prize a few days ago. “In his creations, he shows the world through the construction of a language in which the deformations of reality appear reflected under the guise of irony and humor“, continued the minister, before concluding that Pombo “has created what defines great writers: a world of its own, imperishable and essential that moves and hurts“.

His latest novel, ‘El exclaustrado’, published last September, tells the story of Juan Cabrera, a monk with a great religious vocation who, after a futile incident with some novices, He suffers a crisis of faith and leaves the monastery, only to seclude himself among mountains of theology books in an apartment from the center of Madrid. Until the world, in the form of an innocent nephew, an old rival who hates him, and a simple woman trapped in a relationship with both; They burst into their orderly and silent reality.

In conversation about this book with this newspaper, the writer stated: “I wouldn’t say it’s a self-portrait, I hope not, but it does express things that worry me.. For example, I am a very retired person, increasingly due to my delicate situation, and I see very few people. AND I wanted to warn whoever reads me that living only through books is unbearably sad.“.

This latest novel that masterfully delves into the mysteries of faith, love and revenge joins his long series of stories where elaborate characters, incisive emotions and moral (or immoral) city atmospheres that function as scratches to the life of a Pombo, who, although already the owner of an unmistakable style, considers himself a simple vicar of reality. “I am not a sociologist, but a simple storyteller. You have to reach, like me, 80-something years old to be a full observer of life. And despite the ailments, it pays off,” he said a few weeks ago.

A new biography

Graduated in Philosophy from the University of Madrid, Pombo has a Bachelor of Arts from Birberk College in London. Between 1966 and 1977 he worked in a bank in London, where he became interested in the English literary tradition.he also cultivated poetry early in works such as Protocols (1973), Variations (1977) o Towards a poetic constitution of the current year (1980). He has been a member of the Royal Academy of Language since 2004, occupying the “j” chair.where he read his entrance speech titled Verisimilitude and truth. His work has been translated into multiple languages: German, French, Dutch, Greek, English, Italian, Norwegian and Portuguese.

Active in politics in the defunct Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD) party, Pombo He was a candidate for the Senate twice, 2008 and 2011, but was never elected.. For years he has been critical of an activity that he considers “makes one vain, something not good for a writer.” A few weeks ago I criticized the lack of responsibility of current politics. “Politicians have to get it right, because if they don’t they will screw up. I understand it’s scary being, for example, responsible for feeding the Spanish children, having to calibrate price and tax cuts so that people do not starve, but it is their responsibility“.

In 2025, Anagrama, the writer’s publishing house, plans to publish a biography by the professor, historian and collaborator of the Mountain DiaryMario Crespo, born from the more than 20 years of friendship that unites him and Pombo. «This is a long-term project that will presumably be titled The world of Álvaro Pombo. More than a usual, chronological biography, it will be thematic and will delve into the main themes of his work: childhood, moral problems, homosexuality, the relationship with God and religiosity…”, shares Crespo, who adds which will include “many secrets and keys, such as, for example, his parents’ divorce and other topics that only arise in long conversations between friends.”

Pombo, which has prevailed in this Cervantes over names that had been around for several days, such as the Spanish Enrique Vila-Matasthe Mexican Margo Glantzthe Nicaraguan Gioconda Bellithe Argentine Cesar Aira or the Chilean Raúl Zurita;happens in the list of winners of the highest award in our language to another Spaniard, the Leonese novelist Luis Mateo Diezrecognized last year by the jury as “one of the great narrators of the Spanish language, heir to the Cervantes spirit and creator of imaginary worlds, creator of imaginary worlds and territories.” As is traditional, the prize will be awarded on April 23, 2025, Book Day and anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes, in the traditional delivery ceremony held in the auditorium of the University of Alcalá (Madrid).

The jury of this 49th edition has been chaired by Luis Mateo DiezCervantes Prize 2023, acting as vice president María José Gálvez Salvador, general director of Books and Reading Promotion. Furthermore, it has been formed by Carmen Rieraby the Royal Spanish Academy; Jaime Garau Amengualby the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE); Rosabetty Muñozby the Chilean Academy of Language; Cuauhtémoc Pérez Medranoby the Union of Universities of Latin America and the Caribbean (UDUALC); Luisa Castroby the Cervantes Institute; Angeles Garciaby the Federation of Associations of Journalists of Spain (FAPE); Benjamín Torres Gotayby the Latin American Federation of Journalists (FELAP); Memory Swahneyby the International Association of Hispanists; Marta Sanzat a personal proposal from the Ministry of Culture, and Rafael CadenasCervantes Prize 2022.