Spain's Planeta publishing house last week presented its multi-million dollar literary award to Carmen Mola, a best-selling
thriller
author
who actually happened to be the pseudonym of three male screenwriters.
To the surprise of many, Jorge Díaz, Agustín Martínez and Antonio Mercero were the ones who went on to collect the Planeta Prize of 1 million euros (1.1 million dollars) for their novel
La Bestia,
a
historical
thriller
about a serial killer in Madrid in the middle of cholera epidemic of 1834, as reported by the newspaper El País in Spain.
In this same edition, the Spanish author Paloma Sánchez-Guernica, also a
best-seller author,
was a finalist.
Antonio Mercero, Jorge Díaz and Augustín Martínez are the authors of the novels of Carmen Mola.
Josep Lago / AFP via Getty Images / AFP via Getty Images
Mola, according to the description on the flaps of her books, was a university professor who lived in Madrid with her husband and children
.
Nobody knew her.
His identity was secret.
Her first novel, entitled
The Gypsy Bride
, was published in 2018, was a bestseller and turned its protagonist, Inspector Elena Blanco, into a beloved character in crime novels.
The book was well received by readers, translated into several languages and adapted for television.
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The recent award, however, has brought more questioning than praise to its authors
.
The main criticism towards them is the appropriation of a female name and identity in a medium such as the publishing house in which,
historically, it has been women who have had to hide behind men's names in order to publish their works.
A contemporary example of this is the case of the British writer JK Rowling, author of the famous Harry Potter saga, who published her first works under a male name.
Even the practice of using only the initials of the first name along with a surname is used by many women to avoid being discriminated against.
Signs of rejection of the "author"
After the announcement of the news, feminist writer Beatriz Gimeno referred to the winners as "scammers" on the social network Twitter.
For her, the serious thing is that the three have been giving interviews on behalf of this author for years, deceiving journalists and readers.
They did it through email, to maintain anonymity.
In another show of rejection, the Madrid bookstore, Mujeres & Compañía, specialized in female writers,
decided to
remove from its shelves all copies of the novels signed by Carmen Mola
,
as reported by the Argentine digital medium Infobae.
“I have no reason to willingly reveal my identity, although we can always put one more zero on the check;
I'd better never consider this possibility, "replied the trio of writers about the mysterious author in an interview with the newspaper El País in 2018.
Last week, in a dialogue with the same medium, after winning the award, Antonio Mercero, one of the authors, said by way of defense: "We have not hidden three behind a woman, but behind a name."
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His colleague, Jorge Díaz, added that they wrote the novel "for fun" and that, with the same nonchalance, they chose the name with which they signed their books.
"Someone said 'Carmen', like that, simple, Spanish, and we liked it. Carmen is cool (like it), right? Well, Carmen Mola. And it's over," Mercero said.
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And, when asked if a female pseudonym sells more than a male one, he replied: "I don't have the faintest idea, but it doesn't seem like it to me."