The work ‘Buitrera’, by the Huelva-born writer Manuel Moya, has obtained the II City of Estepona Novel Prize, according to the decision of the jury of this award, convened by the Estepona City Council and the Manuel Alcántara Foundation and endowed with 25,000 euros. This was announced this Friday at the Palace of Fairs and Congresses in an event that was attended by the mayor of the municipality, José María García Urbano, the president of the Manuel Alcántara Foundation, Antonio Pedraza, and the writers and members from the jury Antonio Soler, Nuria Barrios and Guillermo Busutil.
“I am convinced that cities only have the capacity to move forward when improvements are promoted in all areas. In order to take firmer steps in the cultural aspect, the Estepona City Council did not hesitate to ally itself with an institution that has such a prestigious history as the Manuel Alcántara Foundation, launching initiatives of interest such as this first-rate literary contest ”, he pointed out the mayor of Estepona, who recalled that this award, “which was born with the aim of consolidating itself as one of the most outstanding in the narrative scene, joins many other projects that are being carried out in Estepona to bring culture, creation and the different artistic manifestations to the citizens ”.
Likewise, García Urbano wanted to thank that some of the most interesting narrative voices in the current scene have wanted to be part of the jury and that the Pre-Textos publishing house, which has one of the best catalogs in the Spanish language, continues to commit to this award with the publication of the winning work.
For his part, the president of the Manuel Alcántara Foundation has highlighted the great repercussion of the second edition of this contest, “where we have doubled the number of works presented”, and has recognized the work of the members of the jury, “who are the that give prestige to this award ”. Likewise, Antonio Pedraza wanted to thank the mayor of Estepona “for the enthusiasm he has shown from day one in organizing this novel award, which will soon become a benchmark in Spanish literature”.
The jury for this edition has been made up of the writers Nuria Barrios, Eva Díaz Pérez, the editor of Pretextos Manuel Borrás and the writers Antonio Soler, José Antonio Garriga Vela and Guillermo Busutil, as president.
When communicating the ruling, the author of the winning work declared that it is “a great honor as well as an immense joy to obtain this prestigious award that unites the art of the Master of poetry and journalism, our lamented Manuel Alcántara, the beautiful City from the Costa del Sol. I am therefore very happy and I am, singularly, because of the prestige of the jury and because it has valued a novel that talks about fate of Andalusian laborers who try to make a living in a rarefied and difficult environment. A novel that talks about this borderland where I live and that until relatively recently was far from all eyes ”.
From ‘Buitrera’, which will be published by the publishing house Pre-Textos, the members of the jury have highlighted that “it addresses the phenomenon of the maquis with its own personality with remarkable narrative effectiveness and verisimilitude. The story of the plot conflict is based on a successful construction of characters, drawn from the nuances required by their positioning in the drama of the conflict and the causes and motivations that define their attitude. It is also worth highlighting from ‘Buitrera’ the will to excel in literary language, and especially the strength of the landscape and the sensory use of nature that make him an important character, almost the main character in the novel ”.
Nuria Barrios has explained that nature plays a very important role in the novel and becomes the fundamental character in a story of losers in the Civil War. “Nature is the soundtrack of the novel and the one that marks the meaning, beauty and fatalism of the story that Manuel Moya tells. The pages that the author dedicates to the description of the Sierra de Huelva are of great beauty ”.
Antonio Soler, for his part, has been grateful for being part of this literary award, “a brave bet made by the Estepona City Council and that corresponds to the idea that a city without culture is resentful and everything else it can do it would have a deficiency ”. The writer added that “a city like Estepona also has to be a cultural focus and given such a proliferation of museums and other audiovisual issues, that one also looks at literature seems very smart to me”.
Manuel Moya, poet, storyteller, literary critic, editor, translator, has published a dozen books of poetry with which he has won outstanding awards such as the Ciudad de Córdoba (1997), Ciudad de Las Palmas (2001), Leonor (2001) ), Fray Luis de León (2010) and HH Machado (2014). His anthology ‘Room with islands’ has been translated entirely into French and Portuguese. The book of his heteronymous Violeta c. Rangel, ‘Possession of smoke’ is studied in Spanish and North American universities, having been translated into several languages. As a prose writer, he has edited three short story books, ‘La sombra del caimán’ (2006), finalist for the 2006 Setenil prize, ‘Cielo Muncipal’ (2010) and ‘Caza mayor’ (2014), as well as the novels’ La mano en el fuego ‘(2006),’ La tierra negra ‘(2009)’ Majarón ‘(2009) and’ Las cenizas de Abril ‘(Alianza, 2011) winner of the XII Fernando Quiñones Unicaja Novel Prize. He has also translated ‘Libro del desasosiego’ by F. Pessoa (2010), or ‘La poesía completa’ by Caeiro (2009).
The II City of Estepona Novel Prize has been presented more than 600 original works, practically doubling the number of proposals from the first edition, coming from numerous parts of the national territory, as well as from different Latin American countries, such as Argentina, Mexico, Colombia or Venezuela.
The winning work will be released next spring. It will be then when the Huelva writer receives the award in an act that will take place in the city that gives its name to this literary award.