Isabel Allende Wins €1m Premio Planeta Literary Prize

Chilean-American author Isabel Allende won Spain’s €1 million Premio Planeta on Thursday with her novel La hora antes del alba, a sequel to her 1982 debut The House of the Spirits. Submitted under the pseudonym Luz Ventura, the prize also marks her publishing shift from Penguin Random House to Planeta.

Premio Planeta Victory and Publishing Shift for Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende claimed Spain’s prestigious Planeta Prize on Thursday during a ceremony in Barcelona. The award carries a €1 million ($1.16 million) cash prize and distinguishes her latest novel, La hora antes del alba (The Hour Before Dawn).

The 84-year-old author received the award in Barcelona during the 75th Premio Planeta ceremony.

The victory marks a major commercial transition in the literary world. After more than four decades publishing with Plaza & Janés, an imprint of Penguin Random House, Allende has signed with Editorial Planeta, the group that funds the award.

Pseudonyms and the Manuscript Submission Under Luz Ventura

To enter the competition, Allende submitted her work under the pseudonym Luz Ventura using the fictional title Los que faltan.

Despite the pseudonymous submission, industry experts suggested the author’s distinctive voice made her identity difficult to mask entirely. Prof Duncan Wheeler, chair of Spanish studies at Leeds University and president-elect of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland, noted, I’d be very surprised if the judges did not know that it was Isabel Allende.

I had never entered a competition because I wanted to avoid the embarrassment of coming last, At my age, there is very little to lose.

Isabel Allende, author

Allende compared the honor to winning the Nobel (Prize).

Returning to the Trueba Family and Pinochet’s Dictatorship

La hora antes del alba acts as a narrative sequel to The House of the Spirits, the 1982 bestselling debut that introduced readers to the Trueba family’s ghosts, secrets and upheavals across four generations through the history of the 20th century in Chile. The new plot centers on Alba—the granddaughter of Esteban Trueba and Clara del Valle—as she deals with recovery following imprisonment and torture under the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Under Pinochet’s regime, an estimated 40,000 people were subjected to torture and more than 3,000 individuals were killed.

In her acceptance speech, the writer connected the themes of her book to contemporary political pressures. Forced to leave Chile following the military coup led by Augusto Pinochet that overthrew Chilean president Salvador Allende—who was a cousin of her father and Latin America’s first democratically elected Marxist leader—she warned that current global trends echo her past experiences.

Now that I see so many democracies threatened by authoritarianism, extreme nationalism and even fascism, I feel again the fear that led me to leave my country.

Isabel Allende, author

Sergio Hernández Claims Runner-Up Honors at the 75th Anniversary Gala

The 75th anniversary of the literary prize drew 1,300 guests to Pavilion 1 of the Fira de Barcelona. King Felipe VI addressed the gathering, emphasizing the cultural relevance of the contest, its contribution to the Spanish cultural landscape, and highlighting the record number of original manuscripts received for this edition.

Spanish writer and screenwriter Sergio Hernández secured the runner-up position in the competition. His historical novel La añoranza received €200,000.