EDNA LÓPEZ AND SUSANA VALLEJO, WINNERS OF THE 19TH EDITION OF THE EDEBÉ AWARD FOR CHILDREN'S AND YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE

Debutante Edna López (Los Realejos, Tenerife, 1977), for En busca del Tesoro de Kola, and Susana Vallejo (Madrid, 1968), for El espíritu del último verano, are the winners of the 19th edition of the EDEBÉ Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. If for Edna López, the winner of the children’s category, this is her absolute first time literary achievement, for Susana Vallejo, winner of the young adult category, and runner-up at several awards, this is her confirmation.

Passionate about anthropology, Edna López reveals a surprising, magical universe full of mysteries that lie silent in wait for someone to awaken them. Appearances deceive, the elements hide behind each other, but there’s something else. The decision to discover and decipher all of the meanings hidden by the Treasure of Kola will be in the hands of a boy.

Susana Vallejo, with a change of literary register a long way from the science fiction that she usually cultivates, is the winner of the Children’s novel category. Vallejo wanted to write about lost paradises, based on the destruction of one such paradise. The construction of a dual carriageway on the Catalan coast is the starting point. The arrival of the bulldozers marks the end of the “Tree house” and all of its memories. The nostalgia of a time, of a place, marks the start of a personal search.

19th Edebé Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature

Year after year, the reputation of the Edebé Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award, now in its nineteenth edition, has consolidated its position and now enjoys record participation. The Edebé award has become a point of reference among authors, both due to the quality of the work and for the prestige of the writers awarded in previous editions. The list starts with Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Gabriel Janer Manila, followed by significant names in the world of Spanish literature such as Jordi Sierra i Fabra, César Mallorquí, Agustín Fernández Paz, Maite Carranza and Elia Barceló.

Participating in the 19th edition of the EDEBÉ Award, with total prize money of 55,000 euros (30,000 euros for the young adult literature prize and 25,000 euros for the children’s literature prize), were a total of 452 original titles, 285 in the children’s and 167 in the young adult category. Of these works, 404 are in Spanish, 33 in Catalan, 8 in Galician and 7 in Euskera.

One significant indicator of this Edition has been the entry of over a hundred novels from several Latin American countries: Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Santo Domingo, Uruguay, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Cuba, Bolivia and El Salvador.

The two winning works will be published in the four official languages of the State: Spanish, Catalan, Euskera and Galician and, thanks to an agreement with the ONCE, also in Braille. The novels will be in bookstores as of the month of March.

Winners of the previous Edition were Rodrigo Muñoz Avia, for Mi hermano el genio, and Maite Carranza, for Palabras envenenadas. In less than a year, the two works have been reprinted several times, the children's novel twice and the young adult novel three times.

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