Madrid. The Spanish writer Eduardo Mendoza was chosen by the jury as the new Princess of Asturias Award of Las Letras, a recognition that in other editions has fallen to authors such as Haruki Murakami, Anne Carson, Richard Ford, Leonardo Padura, Philip Roth, Leonardo Cohen, Juan Rulfo and Carlos Fuentes, among others. Mendoza is a Barcelona author who has narrated with critical humor one of the most aciagos periods in contemporary Spanish history: the postwar period of hunger and repression. After knowing the news, Mendoza just affirmed: I need time to find fair words. Excited, honest and grateful they seem adequate, but obvious. I have dedicated all my life to what I like most and now I receive this special award. I’m a happy man
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The jury, composed of writers and intellectuals such as Xuan Bello Fernández, María Sheila Cremaschi, María Dueñas Vinuesa, Jesús García Calero, Marisol Schulz Manaut and Sergio Vila-Sanjuán Robert, and chaired by Santiago Muñoz Machado, president of the Royal Spanish Academy, announced his decision after meeting in the Asturian capital, Oviedo. In his justification they highlighted The decisive contribution of Eduardo Mendoza to the Spanish Language Letters of the last half century, with a set of novels that combine the will to innovation with the ability to reach a very broad audience, and that enjoy extensive international recognition
. They also warned that His clear prose encompasses both popular language and the most unexpected cultisms. In his books the sense of humor and the casualist and humanistic vision of existence stand out. Eduardo Mendoza is a supplier of happiness for readers, and his work has the merit of reaching all generations, which today are recognized in their luminous pages
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Mendoza, born in Barcelona in 1943, has cultivated various genres, especially the novel, dramaturgy and essay, but has also been a translator. His academic life began as a law student, who managed to end in 1965 at the University of Barcelona and, after traveling in Europe, in 1966 he obtained a scholarship in London to study Sociology. Upon returning to Barcelona in 1967, he exercised law and in 1973 he moved to New York to work as a UN translator, where he remained until 1982. In 1983 he returned to Barcelona and continued his career as a simultaneous translator in international organizations based in Geneva and other cities.
Satire and parody
Eduardo Mendoza’s work, generally set in Barcelona and began with the publication of the novel The truth about the Savolta case In 1975, it shows a style in which elements of science fiction, the Gothic and black novel, as well as a particular sense of humor, satire and parody are mixed.
Then he published The mystery of the haunted crypt (1979), The labyrinth of the olives (1982), The city of prodigies (1986), The unheard island (1989), No news from Gurb (1991), The Añor of the flood (1992), A light comedy (1996), The adventure of the ladies’ (2001), The amazing journey of Pomponio Flato (2008), The tangle of the bag and life (2012), as well as The secret of the lost model (2015).
In addition to the Cervantes Award, which was awarded in 2016, Mendoza became the first Spanish author in 2015 to receive the Kafka Award.
In this edition to the Princess Awards of Asturias of the Letters a total of 24 nominations of 16 nationalities attended. This has been the second of the eight Princess of Asturias awards granted this year, in which it meets its 45th edition. The first was the Princess of Asturias of Communication and Humanities to the German philosopher and essayist of South Korean origin bycoreano Byung-Chul Han. The delivery gala will be held in Oviedo next October.