Savater Named the Winner of Spain's Planeta Prize

by Jessica Bermúdez -- Críticas, 10/15/2008 9:00:00 AM

On Wednesday, October 15, the Spanish author, philosopher, and political activist Fernando Savater was named winner of this year’s Premio Planeta for La hermandad de la buena suerte (“The Brotherhood of Good Luck”), a novel about a rich man who hires mercenaries to find a jockey who goes missing before a crucial race. The prize, one of the most prestigious for Spanish-language literature, carries a cash award of €601,000 (approximately U.S. $820,000). Submitted under a pseudonym and with the title La curva del Pardo (“Pardo's Curve”), Savater’s winning work includes elements of metaphysics, past and recent historical events, and horse racing, one of Savater’s fascinations.

Savater (b. San Sebastián, 1947), a Basque writer who lived in exile during the Franco regime, is professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at the University of Alcalá, Madrid. The author of over 20 books, he was a Planeta finalist for his novel El jardín de las dudas (“The Garden of the Doubts”) in 1993, and has received other important awards, including the Premio Anagrama for Invitación a la ética (“Invitation to the Ethics”) and the Premio Nacional de Ensayo for La tarea del héroe (“The task of the hero”), both in 1982.

This year’s other finalist, who also wins a decent amount of €150,000, was Manchegan author Ángela Vallvey for Muerte entre poetas (“Death Between Poets”), a mystery novel, in line with those by Agatha Christie, about a dead poet who doubles as a detective and who attends a reunion for poets.

The judges this year, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Pere Gimferrer, Carmen Posadas, Rosa Regàs, Alberto Blecua, and Álvaro Pombo, chose Savater’s work from among 528 submissions received from around the world.