The Board of Directors of the Association of Editors of Madrid (AEM) has awarded the Antonio de Sancha Prize 2023 in its 27th edition to Lorenzo Silva for his “exciting stories, masterfully constructed.”
With this award, the AEM wants to recognize “the quality and popularity” of its books and journalistic articles, as well as the defense of the rights of authors and publishers.
For the jury, Silva “not only finds exciting stories, but masterfully constructs and defines them as a set of actions and circumstances that, in addition to giving meaning and rhythm to the narrative, never leave aside the first and ultimate motivations that move the story.” the people and characters of his stories”.
After learning of Antonio de Sancha’s ruling, Lorenzo Silva thanked the editors for this recognition and recalled the words of Bennett Cerf, founder of Random House, who in his memoirs wished as an epitaph that it could be said that “it left people a little happier than he was when he walked into the room.”
“After more than half a century of life and four decades of writing, it seems to me the most judicious of resolutions,” said Silva, who has assured that if he has had any opportunity to achieve it “it has been thanks to generous and bold editors who “believed” in their work.
“For them, and for having also briefly carried out the noble profession of publishing, this award is an immense honor for me, which is increased by the list of illustrious winners that precedes me. I hope to be able to deserve it and I express my gratitude to those who award it my deep gratitude,” he added.
Born in the Madrid neighborhood of Carabanchel, Lorenzo Silva (Madrid, 1966) graduated in Law from the Complutense University and began his professional career as an account auditor and then practiced law for twelve years, before dedicating himself completely to writing.
Since he began his literary career in 1980, he has written hundreds of stories and articles, a good number of literary and historical essays, books of poetry, a dramatic work, two travel books and thirty-five novels.
Among the most notable are ‘The Impatient Alchemist’, 2000 Nadal Prize; and in which his best-known characters appear for the second time, the Civil Guard couple formed by Sergeant Rubén Bevilacqua and Agent Virginia Chamorro.
Also noteworthy is ‘The Bolshevik’s Flail’, a novel that was a finalist for Nadal in 1997 and which was adapted to film by director Manuel Martín Cuenca, and for whose script they were nominated for the Goya. In 2012, ‘The Meridian Mark’ earned him the Planeta Award. That same year, together with Noemí Trujillo, he launched the Playa de Akaba publishing label, in which they have published some collaborative books.
Lorenzo Silva is one of the benchmarks of contemporary literature and his police and historical novels have more than two and a half million readers. His work has been translated into fourteen languages.
Curator of the Getafe Negro festival since 2008, Silva has received other recognitions, such as the appointment of Honorary Civil Guard in 2010, the Culture Award, in the Literature category, from the Community of Madrid in 2017, or the CEDRO Award for his defense of intellectual property in 2017.
The delivery of the 2023 Antonio de Sancha Prize will take place on December 12 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes. The event will end with a discussion in which the award-winning Lorenzo Silva and the director of the Getafe Negro Festival and LiterOcio, Maica Rivera, will participate. It will also be the first edition in which the award is an original work by the sculptor Alicia Martín, who received the Antonio de Sancha in 2019.