Peru’s Santiago Roncagliolo Wins 2006 Alfaguara Prize

by María Elena Cruz López -- Críticas, 3/15/2006

With the novel Abril rojo (Red April), the 30-year-old Peruvian Santiago Roncagliolo has become the youngest author to win Alfaguara’s $175,000 Premio de Novela. In this political thriller, Félix Chacaltana is a public prosecutor in charge of solving a murder case that might be linked to Peru’s infamous terrorist group, the Shining Path. Renowned Mexican novelist Ángeles Mastretta presided over the jury, which chose Roncagliolo’s novel from a pool of 510 manuscripts.

Abril Rojo evokes the war fought between the Shining Path and the Peruvian army under president Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s. Although the jury saw Abril Rojo as a political novel, Roncagliolo prefers to shun that category. “I have always understood literature as the story of individual persons,” he says in a release from Alfaguara. “I don’t want to revolutionize narrative, but rather to tell stories that make readers laugh, cry, or that scares them. I’m more interesed in provoking emotions than in producing intellectual references.” The jury praised Roncagliolo’s skillfull narration and dramatic force, as well as “the original combination of a political novel with the intricacies of a thriller.”

A prolific writer, Roncagliolo burst onto the international literary scene in 2005 with Pudor (Prudishness), the story of a dysfunctional Limean family, which has since been translated into several languages and will be released as a feature film in Peru this June. Roncagliolo has also written three children’s books, including Rugor, el dragón enamorado (Rugor, a Dragon in Love, Alfaguara, 1999) and Matías y los imposibles (Matías and the impossibles, Siruela, 2006); a book of short stories, Crecer es un oficio triste (Growing Up is a Sad Business, Ediciones del Bronce, 2003); and an internationally performed play, Tus amigos nunca te harían daño (Your Friends Would Never Hurt You). The Premio Alfaguara is Roncagliolo’s first literary award.