Leonardo Padura, Pepe Carvalho Award 2023

The name of the winner of the Pepe Carvalho Award 2023 has been announced. He is the writer Leonardo Padura (Havana, 1955), one of the most prominent voices in Latin American literature today. The jury, formed by Carlos Zanón, as president, and Anna Abella, Lilian Neuman, Esteve Riambau, Rosa Ribas and Daniel Vázquez Sallés, as members, wanted to show their satisfaction in giving the award “to the creator of Mario Conde, charismatic protagonist of nine novels so far, heir, or even Caribbean brother of the character by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán“.

The verdict highlights that “Padura’s voice is one of the most prominent in Latin American literature today. It is a voice committed both to literature and to Cuba, the main protagonist of his works, whether in his detective novels or in the historical ones, genres between which he moves masterfully, which he hybridizes and transforms, to build a work that is as Cuban as it is universal. Because Padura talks to us about Cuba and also about all of us, and he does so from a critical and realistic, inclined to pessimism –it cannot be otherwise when you look at humans closely– but at the same time it shows us the human capacity for dignity, beauty and, especially, friendship”.

Leonardo Padura got the Princesa de Asturias de las Letras Award 2015 for his work as a whole. Among the detective novels starring Mario Conde we find Pasado perfecto (1991), Vientos de cuaresma (1994), Máscaras (1997), Paisaje de otoño (1998), Adiós, Hemingway (2001) or La transparencia del tiempo (2018), translated into numerous languages and worthy of awards such as the Café Gijón, the Dashiell Hammett, the Premio de las Islas 2000, Brigada 21 or the Novel·la Històrica Barcino Award. He is also the author, among others, of La novela de mi vida (2002), El hombre que amaba a los perros (2009), or Como polvo en el viento (2020).

This year is the 18^th edition of this award that honours and remembers the character created by Vázquez Montalbán, and also, of course, its author. Recent editions have awarded Don Winslow (2022), Joyce Carol Oates (2021), Juan Madrid (2020), Claudia Piñeiro (2919), James Ellroy (2018), Dennis Lehane (2017) and Donna Leon (2016). The announcement of the Pepe Carvalho Award marked the official start of the BCNegra 2023 festival, which takes place from February 6 to 12. The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, February 9, at 6 pm in the Saló de Cent of Barcelona City Hall, and Padura will participate in two more festival activities: on February 7, he will present the screening of the film Vientos de La Habana, with a script based on a novel by him, and on February 11 he will star in the conversation entitled El doble a l’altra banda del mur.

More information, here.