Roser Vernet, Gabriela Cabezón, Marta Pera and Mar García Ciutat de Barcelona Literary Awards

The Ciutat de Barcelona Awards, given by Barcelona City Council, are intended to recognise artistic and cultural creation linked to the city. The juries of these awards have made public the verdicts of the Ciutat de Barcelona Awards 2023 in the categories Agustí Duran i Sanpere for Essay, Humanities and History of Barcelona; Literature in Catalan; Translation in Catalan; and Literature in Spanish.

The jury, made up of Llucia Ramis (president), Mercè Sàrrias, Alba Sabaté, Marina Espasa and Víctor García Tur, unanimously agreed to award the Ciutat de Barcelona Award for Literature in Catalan to the work Lo mig del món, by Roser Vernet, published by Club Editor. The work stands out for being a committed and emotive portrait of a Catalonia on the verge of extinction, written with a forceful voice that calls for a collective reaction. Through a powerful language, set in a landscape of olive groves and oil mills, of dry fields and rivers, she meditates on the effect of time on the place we inhabit and the need to reconstruct our origins. Vernet places the rural world at the centre of contemporary reflection with a singular, intimate and political book.

The jury, made up of Esther Zarraluki (president), Ana María Iglesia Pagnotta, Isabel Sucunza, Pablo Martín Sánchez and Diego Falconí, has decided by a majority to award the Ciutat de Barcelona Award for Literature in Spanish to Las niñas del naranjel (Random House), by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, for presenting the complexity of colonial and gender discourse and for its ability to amalgamate different traditions, cultures and languages. The audacious re-reading of a controversial historical figure and the poetic and animalistic prose stand out.

On the other hand, the jury made up of Míriam Cano (president), Marc Donat, Susanna Rafart, Xènia Dyakonova and Marc Rubió unanimously agreed to award the Ciutat de Barcelona Award for Translation in Catalan to Marta Pera for her translation of Virginia Woolf‘s Orlando (Viena Edicions) from English into Catalan. The jury emphasised that Pera has updated this classic with a lively and versatile language that is permeable to the rich registers of the original work.

Finally, the jury, made up of Andrea Soto Calderón (president), Pau Alsina, Jorge Luis Marzo, Iván de la Nuez and Mireia Capdevila, announced that, by a majority, it awarded the Agustí Duran i Sanpere Ciutat de Barcelona Award for Essay, Humanities and History of Barcelona to the work La historia de los vertebrados (Random House) / La història dels vertebrats (La Magrana), by Mar García Puig. The reasons: the richness, variety, originality and courage in tackling issues such as the relationship between feminism, motherhood, power and health policy. “It is remarkable her ability to structure a well-founded documentary research with her own experience of subjectivity”, considers the jury.

In the next few days, the winners of the other categories of the Ciutat de Barcelona Awards 2023 will be announced. These awards have a prize of €9,500 and will be presented on 13 February at a ceremony in the Saló de Cent.

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