La Jornada: Elma Correa: Biblioteca Breve 2026 award

Last February, the writer Elma Correa received the 2026 Breve Seix Barral Library Award for her novel Where summer ends. The cover represents a woman dressed in red who opens her arms towards infinity, towards hope.

–Elma, when did your life as a writer begin?

–I studied literature at the Autonomous University of Baja California and entered the Faculty of Humanities. My degree is called Latin American language and literature. Then I did a master’s degree in sociocultural studies in Mexicali; Then, a doctorate in sociology and my topic was: society, space and power, also in Mexicali.

–What were your first published books?

–I have five short stories, two published in Nitro Press, one by the Benemérita Universidad de Puebla, in the Contemporáneas collection, made up of pure young, live writers, coordinated by Liliana Pedrosa, who is a narrator and researcher specializing in short stories in Mexico. I also have Lies that I didn’t tell you, With that I won the Juan José Arreola Prize and it was published by the University of Guadalajara. with my work The simple I won the Amparo Dávila award.

–The three times you have applied for a prize you have won, how wonderful! Where do you think that strength comes from?

–We are four sisters and my mother instilled reading in us. My mother is a retired nurse and founding mother of the Faculty of Nursing of the Autonomous University of Baja California. He always dedicated himself to teaching and practicing his profession. When I was very little, my mother read to me before going to sleep; that was important to me. I was very excited about that moment; So, I wanted to read too. When you are a reader, at some point you decide that you want to say things and you want to write them. I think my vocation comes from there.

–And your dad?

–No, my dad is not in the picture, he already died. We were always my mother, my sisters and I, pure women, pure “girls,” as we say there.

-As little women, by Louisa May Alcott.

–Yes, I always thought I was like Joe when I was little. She was the one I liked, the most adventurous. I never identified with the one who just wanted to get married.

–Your novel Where summer ends Is it developed in Mexico?

–The story takes place in a neighborhood of Mexicali, close to the international line, in the 90s. At that time there were social programs inherited from Solidaridad, from the PRI. One of those programs consisted of providing medical care house to house. Brigades of doctors and nurses went around the poor neighborhoods giving consultations, vaccinations, cures, and when they could they distributed contraceptive methods. My mother is a retired nurse, and for a time she participated in these campaigns; Back then it was normal to see doctors and nurses visiting the homes of the poorest people. There were also American religious groups looking for followers for their churches. It was a period of social panic due to the theft of children on the outskirts of the city. It was said that the narcosatanic They were taken for sacrifice or were also victims of trafficking networks. That is the context of the novel.

–Elma, what is structural violence?

–The very poverty of the neighborhood, the missing children, the machismo, the misogyny. It was important to me to talk about the bonds that are created in the community: about people who help each other, about hope and how to survive that violent context.

“The protagonists of the novel are some girls who live in a neighborhood where all these things are happening. There are nurses, American preachers, people scared because children are disappearing. In that universe, one of the friends is a migrant from Sinaloa. There are people from different parts of the country and the border is a multicultural area. The other is from Mexicali, an athlete, she does long jump, she is the glory of the neighborhood, because when she wins the municipal tournaments, the neighbors celebrate her.

–Why was the summer season important to you in your novel?

–My novel begins in the summer in which the friends finish primary school and go on to secondary school. They are called Elisa and Aime, who in turn “malmodate” a third girl, Rosario, the poorest; that is, they mistreat her. Sorry for my northern words!

Elma smiles, mixing English with Spanish. She is a woman who assumes she is from the northern border and that is why she uses those “words” according to her.

–How did you structure your novel?

–The novel has a peculiar structure. There are eight long chapters, each one is in a different time and era: the 90s, the 2010s, for example. Each chapter has a different perspective of the tragic event that the protagonists experience.

–As readers, what can we expect from Where does summer end?

–There are events of violence, abuse, oblivion, marginalization, there are frustrated dreams, I talk a little about conformity, abuse, but in such an everyday way that it seems normal to us, what happens every day, but it is also a novel of survival.

–Do you talk a lot about pain?

–I want to explore the complexities of friendship, human relationships, guilt, but also how the community forms a common front in hostile contexts to get ahead.

–Do you consider your novel to be autobiographical?

-No. It’s all fiction. The setting is based on the neighborhood where I grew up: a rough neighborhood in Mexicali. Nothing the novel says happened to me, or anyone I know, but it doesn’t mean it won’t happen to someone else.

–What did it mean when your novel won the Biblioteca Breve 2026 award from the Seix Barral publishing house?

–It’s crazy, it’s a very big emotion. I have nothing but gratitude for the jury and everyone involved. I think it is an incentive to continue writing, to see that one is not so wrong. That’s the feeling when this happens. I had the need to tell the story and I never wrote it thinking about winning anything. The Brief Library Award is a kind of push to continue writing.

–What else do you expect from this novel, Elma?

–The literary agency that accompanies me on this path is Gaeb & Eggers Literary Agency, and it helps me make my books go further. Where summer ends It will be translated into Finnish, German, French, Italian and Dutch, but it is thanks to the agency, including the prize itself, because it would never have occurred to me to put it in the competition. The agency had the vision of sending it to the Biblioteca Breve Award, in Spain. The delivery ceremony was delayed a whole day because we were hit by a gale in Barcelona. There were some very strong gusts of wind that felled trees, spectacular announcements.

–You caused that weather, Elma.

–We are carrying a northern gale from Mexicali to Barcelona. I was very emotional, Elena, I think maybe I’m the only one who cried at the award ceremony, what a shame! My son Saul went with me. That’s it sir, I had it very small.

–Are you writing another book?

–Yes, I’m already working on something else. I am single-minded, I am very interested in friendship between women, the relationships we make in a world that is very hostile to us. I believe that friendship between women is a refuge, supporting each other is always a way to survive.