Premio Planeta 2009

**Stewart** · 07-Oct-2009, 19:08

We've just had the Booker Prize announced, we're expecting the Nobel Prize in Literature tomorrow, but that shouldn't let us forget there's another big money prize (?601,000) coming up, the second largest prize in the world. It's the Premio Planeta.

It's a prize given to an original novel written in Spanish, announced on 15th October every year, and also comes with a ?150,000 prize for a runner-up.

Previous winners have included Mario Vargas Llosa, Juan Mars?, and Camilo Jos? Cela.

**abecedarian** · 07-Oct-2009, 19:22

Do you have a link for an English version of their listings? I found a translated wikipedia article, and can cut and paste authors at amazon, but if the work has been done elsewhere, that would be lovely.

**Daniel del Real** · 07-Oct-2009, 20:34

I personally don't like too much the choices the Premio Planeta does, I think the prize is mostly famous by the amount of money it delivers but not for the great quality of its works. Personally I prefer the Alfaguara Novel Prize, which is also a good source of new Hispanic writers and doesn't award only the sacred cows like the Planeta Prize does.
I sustain this with a quick translation from the wiki page in Spanish

At recent years its credibility has decreased in many angles. Sources claim that writers Migu?l Delibes and Ernesto S?bado declined the prize, when organizars offered them the award back in 1994.
In 2005 an Argentinian court ordered Planeta group to pay 10,000 dollars to writer Gustavo Nielsen after he was affected when a fraud was detected in the Argentinian version of Premio Planeta in 1997

**Daniel del Real** · 15-Oct-2009, 23:21

Spanish writer ?ngeles Caso won the Premio Planeta de Novela 2009. Her novel titled Contra el Viento (Against the Wind) deals about a woman from Cabo Verde who after years of misfortunes in her country decides to emigrate to Europe; first Portugal, later Spain. But things don't get any better as life keeps mistreating her.

?ngeles already has some history with grupo Planeta. She was finalist for the prize back in 1994 with her novel El Peso de las Sombras (The Weight of Shadows), won that year by Camilo Jos? Cel?'s novel La Cruz de San Andr?s.

This is the very first time I've heard from this author, but the novel seems quite interesting.