Sonsoles Ónega wins the 2023 Planeta Award

The journalist, television presenter and writer Sonsoles Ónega (Madrid, 45 years old) has won the 2023 Planeta Prize with the work Las hijas de la criada. The finalist in this 72nd edition is Alfonso Goizueta Alfaro with the text La sangre del padre. The award was announced on Sunday night during a gala dinner in the Oval Room of the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), in Barcelona, attended by more than a thousand guests. The Planeta Prize is endowed with one million euros for the winning work (more than the Nobel Prize) and 200,000 for the runner-up.

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The novel by Ónega (which was presented under the pseudonym Gabriela Monte) tells the story, during much of the twentieth century, in Galicia and Cuba, of the Valdés, a family of Galician canning entrepreneurs, with special emphasis on the struggle of the women of the clan, who were decisive for the creation of their commercial empire. Although "a terrible secret will mark their lives forever," according to the publisher. This award is a new milestone in the saga of television characters who triumph in the literary world. It is also important for the Ónega saga: Sonsoles, star of the afternoons of Antena 3 (Atresmedia, a company of the Planeta Group), is the daughter of the famous journalist Fernando Ónega and sister of the journalist Cristina Ónega.

The finalist surprises with his youth. Alfonso Goizueta Alfaro was born in Madrid in 1999, has a degree in History and International Relations from King's College London, and was precocious: at the age of 17 he published Limitando el poder (Ediciones Nobel), where he dissects the evolution of European diplomacy between 1871 and 1939. Now he is awarded, under the pseudonym of Luis Parterrío, for a narrative about the adventures of Alexander the Great in his advance towards Persia and his slow conversion, battle after battle, into a "tyrant who drags his people to death".

The jury was made up of José Manuel Blecua, Fernando G. Delgado, Juan Eslava Galán, Pere Gimferrer, Carmen Posadas, Rosa Regás and Belén López, director of the Planeta publishing house and secretary of the jury with vote. "We have noticed that this year many historical novels have been presented, and there are also many female characters," said Eslava Galán at the press conference held on Saturday at the Llotja in Barcelona. Last year's winner was Luz Gabás with Lejos de Luisiana, which the publisher claims to have sold some 600,000 copies. And the year before, the trio of male writers nicknamed after a woman: Carmen Mola. The revelation of the pseudonym caused no small amount of stir. In recent years, in addition to increasing the amount of the prize (in 2021 it went from 601,000 euros to the famous million; it started with 40,000 pesetas), there have been awards, with exceptions, that tend towards greater commerciality, to the detriment of more "literary" authors.

Among those invited to the populous gala (with also a populous photocall) were political figures such as Yolanda Díaz, second vice-president of the Government and Minister of Labour and Social Economy; Miquel Iceta, Minister of Culture and Sports; Joan Subirats, Minister of Universities (all in office), and the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni. Also numerous personalities from the world of journalism and television; some writers, not so many.

The Planeta dinner is a curious event between elegance and spectacle, with a curious tradition: during the course of the agape, a play-off between the finalists is announced, as in a TV contest; Meanwhile, attendees can participate by venturing a pool that will be rewarded with a set of books. The faces of the winners of the award since its foundation are also projected on large screens. At the end of the process, in third place in the heat, resisting until the last turn along with the two winners, was the work El reencuentro; its author participated under the pseudonym of Tintaleve. A story about a Sandinista guerrilla, retired in the mountains of Madrid, whose daughter returns to take care of her mother's legacy, all in times of pandemic confinement.

The venue, the Oval Room of the MNAC, is one of the largest event spaces in Europe, according to the museum itself, with a majestic vault and a large German organ by the E.F. Walcker company inaugurated on July 6, 1929 by Alfred Sittard. It needs a restoration of three million euros (the equivalent of three Planeta awards). It was in this space that Alfonso XIII inaugurated the Universal Exhibition of the same year. It's hard to imagine how it's cooked for more than a thousand people, but the fact is that it's done: an army of waiters served garden salad with Sant Carles prawns, sea bass loin and vegetable roll with pine nuts, and, for dessert, vanilla chestnut chiboust (the names of the dishes are summarized for space reasons). Cava and assorted wines.

An all-time record

In this edition, 1,129 novels have been submitted to the Planet, a record in the history of the award. There are 461 more than the previous year, a notable increase (of 40%) that the organization attributes to the simplification in the process of submitting the works: this year they could be sent by email, avoiding the hassle of printing, binding and shipping. After passing through several filters of external and internal readers to the publisher, the ten finalist texts that were presented to the jury were gradually decanted. As José Creuheras, president of Grupo Planeta and Atresmedia, explained at Saturday's meeting, it is also possible for a member of the jury to rescue for the final a text that they know has been presented, but that does not have to have passed the aforementioned filters. It can be seen as the reparation of an injustice. Or as a shortcut.

There are already 45 million people who have read novels that have won the Planeta Prize in its 72 editions, a distinction that has been pointing out the main lines of commercial literature in Spanish: there are loyal readers of the prize every year and this book also becomes a traditional object of gift. Among the historical winners are Nobel laureates such as Camilo José Cela or Mario Vargas Llosa, but also a large sample of the great names of literature of recent decades such as Juan Marsé, Eduardo Mendoza, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Maruja Torres, Clara Sánchez, Terenci Moix or Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. Not much is remembered about the first winner, Juan José Mira with En la noche no hay camino, 72 years ago. Throughout its history, since 1952, 27,000 writers have tried their luck by sending a manuscript copy. Only a few have achieved glory (and money).