Sergio del Molino wins the Alfaguara Prize for Fiction for “The Germans”

Sergio del Molino won the 27th Alfaguara Prize for Fiction for his work Germans. The writer and journalist received the award coinciding with the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the publishing house.

Writers Sergio Ramirez – who won the prize in its first edition in 1998 – Juan José Melas, Rosa Montero, Manuel Rivas and Laura Restrepo, were part of the award jury in the year in which the publishing house celebrates its 60th anniversary. Alfaguara's managing editor, Pilar Reyes, was also part of the judging panel with a voice but not a vote.

The novel begins in 1916 but continues to the present. That year, in the middle of World War I, two ships arrived in Cadiz carrying more than six hundred Germans from Cameroon. They surrendered on the Guinean border to the colonial authorities because Spain is a neutral country. They would settle, among other places, in Zaragoza and form a small community there that would not return to Germany.

It is a real situation that has been on the mind of the writer and journalist for years, but until now he has not found “suitability” in the novel, as he admitted when he stood to receive the award and thanked him for it.

The writer explained, “The descendants of these families created a class consciousness, of belonging to a kind of aristocratic body because of their German surnames and how far they were from normal life in the country.” “The novel tells the story of one of these families that is in disintegration. We talk about inheritance and many other themes that will be familiar to my readers, since they have obsessed me for a long time.”

The award consists of a cash prize of $175,000, a sculpture by Martin Chirino, and simultaneous publication of the novel throughout the Spanish-speaking world. The book will be available in bookstores on March 21. It's an award that the publisher defines as “an honor for a shared language of more than 590 million readers.”

The jury, who unanimously awarded Del Molino the award, highlighted his “brilliance in narrating a very little-known event in Spanish history related to the mutations of Nazism and with grave consequences in today's world. Dark family secrets contain a threatening past capable of destroying him.” Present…Do children inherit the sins of their parents? A wonderful novel that tests the conscience of the characters and shakes the conscience of the reader.

Sergio del Molino said that “the past is always lurking around us to punish us if we neglect it,” and this is what happens to the heroes of this novel, who are “threatened by a dormant past that they ignore, but there are others.” They will not ignore it, and will rub it in their faces to destroy their present and future.

Sergio Ramírez praised the novel's qualities. Among them is “the ability to combine reality with fiction, which is one of the things I like most about a novel that tells historical events. One is tempted to go to Google whether the events happened or not, whether the names are real or not. No.” It is one of the traps that the writer sets in the eyes of the reader with his narrative skills.”

“For me, the reader’s doubt about the veracity of what is being narrated or not is evidence of the success of the novel,” this is what the author himself admitted in this sense.

For his part, Juan José Milas praised the combination of adventure and contemplation. “This balance is not easy to find in many novels, and in this one it is achieved perfectly.” He also highlighted a subplot of the novel that talks about an “urban disaster” in the city of Zaragoza.

Rosa Montero described the book as an “exciting novel.” He says that the author succeeded in giving each character its voice, its world, and its way of expressing itself, and in adding “tremendous vitality” to the novel, which is characterized at the same time by “great sensitivity.” He also highlighted the importance of family, “that core core of your life that can also be terrifying,” as well as the “authenticity” of the narrative voice, which “makes you believe that the story is actually being told to you by the descendants of one of these German families.”

Sergio del Molino explained that the novel soars above Schubert's music, which serves to “understand the cultural world in which they live.” He confirms that “there is a musical thought” in the way he writes. It is a work that was highlighted by Manuel Rivas, who praised the work of “cultural immersion” behind it.

The event was attended by Penguin Random House Publishing Group Director, Nuria Capote; Culture Delegate to the Madrid City Council, Marta Rivera de la Cruz; Secretary of State for Culture, Jordi Martí Grau; Speaker of the House of Representatives Francina Armengol; Director of the Círculo de Bellas Artes (which hosted the event), Valerio Rocco; Many figures from the literary world attended, such as the writer Luis Mateo Díez, recent winner of the Cervantes Prize, among other authors, such as Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Carme Riera or Ana Merino.

Some of those present were winners of previous editions, such as José Ovejero, Ray Loriga or Manuel Vicente. Authors such as Clara Sánchez, Elena Poniatowska, Laura Restrepo, Santiago Roncagliolo, Andrés Newman, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Carla Gelvenbein, Ray Loriga, Jorge Volpe, Patricio Brun, Guillermo Arriaga, Pilar Quintana have also received awards on other occasions. In the last edition, Gustavo Rodriguez won with his novel One hundred guinea pigs.

This edition contained 800 manuscripts, including 396 manuscripts sent from Spain, 104 from Argentina, 109 from Mexico, 93 from Colombia, 40 from the United States, 20 from Chile, 26 from Peru, and 12 from Uruguay.

Sergio del Molino (Madrid, 1979) He is the author of two critical narrative essays on population migration and the “idea of ​​the country”: Spain is empty (2016; Alfaguara, 2022), for which it won the Booksellers Guild Best Article Award and the Calamo Prize, as well as being included in the “Best of the Year” lists of the entire cultural press; And Against empty Spain (Alfaguara, 2021). Previously, he had won the Ojo Critico and Tigre Juan awards Purple hour (2013; Alfaguara, 2023) and later with the ESPASA Award thanks Off-site locations (2018). In addition, he is the author of novels such as What no one cares about (Random House, 2014) and Fish appearance (Random House, 2017), from a short biographical essay Callomard. The bastard son of lights (2020), from a fictionalized autobiography about his relationship with illness, Skin (Al-Faguara, 2020), and A certain Gonzalez (Alfaguara, 2022). He is a newspaper columnist Country and collaborator with Radio Onda Cero, among other media. His works have appeared in English, Italian, French, Greek, German, and Chinese, among other languages, and in more than fifteen countries.

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