For his story “The Third Paradise”, the Chilean journalist, editor, columnist, essayist and debutant as a novelist Cristian Alarcon Casanova was announced this morning from Spain as the winner of the XXV Edition of the Alfaguara Novel Prize.
The work was written during the pandemic by Buenos Aires resident Argentina, founder and director of the magazine “Anfibia”, according to the minutes of the jury read by its president, the author Fernando Aramburu, is “a beautiful novel with a double structure set in various locations in Chile and Argentina”, where “the protagonist reconstructs the history of his ancestors while in his passion for cultivating a garden in search of a personal paradise delf “.
The rest of the jury was composed of the journalist and writer Olga Merino, novelist, screenwriter and film director Ray Loriga, the lawyer, author and bookseller Paula Vazquez, the editor and director of the FIL Guadalajara, Marisol Schulz Manaut, as well as the editorial director of Alfaguara, Pilar Reyes, with voice but no voice.
The deliberations, Aramburu added, were carried out around a final list of seven selected novels, the decision of which was taken unanimously and “without much effort”, out of a total of 899 manuscripts, of which 139 were from Argentina, 43 from Chile and 119 wash. of Mexico, including Latin American countries and the United States.
“The third paradise,” the president continued, “opens a door to the hope of finding refuge in collective tragedies in small things. As the author says: ‘beauty begins in the wonder of flowers, as beautiful as what they end up in, in which we will always see the mystery that can not be solved ‘.
He highlighted in the pen of Chilean virtues such as the quality of a concise, precise and refined prose, adapted to the story being told, short in length but with room for the inclusion of various timelines, recognizable historical events . such as the earthquake in Chile in 1960, the political period of Salvador Allende, the coup and the subsequent repression.
“Despite the fact that the story does not avoid private and collective tragedies, it is actually a novel of hope, in which beauty, the pleasure of the senses, the possibility of a personal refuge in the form of a landscaped space to be found, postulated. “
For this triumph, Alarcón Casanova will win $ 175,000, a sculpture by Martín Chirino and the simultaneous publication of his novel Around the Spanish-Speaking World on March 24.
ricardo.quiroga@eleconomista.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx