Enlarge image
Agustín Martínez, Jorge Díaz and Antonio Mercero accept the highly endowed award
Photo:
Kike Rincón / picture alliance / dpa / EUROPA PRESS
The Spanish thriller writer Carmen Mola did not want to reveal her identity, ostensibly to protect her private life.
At an award ceremony, three middle-aged men stood on the stage, who revealed themselves as the real creatives behind the pseudonym.
Agustín Martínez, Jorge Díaz and Antonio Mercero are screenwriters between 40 and 50 years of age.
You won the Planeta Prize, endowed with one million euros, for a previously unpublished Carmen Mola novel.
The Spanish king was also present at the award ceremony.
The novels of the professor who allegedly lives in Madrid - this is how her publisher's website previously described Carmen Mora's vita - revolve around the detective Elena Blanco.
A woman who, according to the publisher, »loves grappa and karaoke, as well as cars and sex in SUVs«.
The three novels published so far are particularly brutal.
One of them was published in German under the title "He wants to see her die".
The true trio of authors reportedly didn't use the pseudonym Camen Mola to sell more books. Antonio Mercero told the Spanish daily El País: “We weren't hiding behind a woman, but behind a name. I don't know if a female pseudonym sells more books than a male one, but I doubt it. "
It is precisely this calculation that the authors are accused of in the Spanish media, not least because of comparisons with the Italian author Elena Ferrante, who also keeps her identity a secret.
El Mundo newspaper wrote, “It should have escaped no one missed the fact that the idea of a university professor and mother of three teaching algebra in the mornings and brutal, macabre novels in the afternoons in her limited time is a pretty great marketing operation. «
kae
