European Book Prize 2013 awarded to Barcelona’s Eduardo Mendoza

Barcelona (ACN).- Catalan writer Eduardo Mendoza was proclaimed winner of the European Book Prize 2013 in the novel category for An Englishman in Madrid (Riña de gatos, Madrid 1936). Mendoza rose to fame in the late 1970s and the 1980s by publishing several books on his home-town, Barcelona. The most famous of these novels, The City of Marvels (La ciudad de los prodigios, from1986) forever bound the writer to the Catalan capital in readers’ minds. That book delved into the significant urban and social evolution of Barcelona between the Universal Expositions of 1888 and 1929. In his latest novel, the writer has decided to explore the political tensions in Madrid at the very beginning of the Spanish Civil War, in 1936, through the perception of a foreigner, an Englishman. The other finalists in the novel category were Luciana Castellina for Discovering the World, Vassilis Alexakis for The Greek Child (L’Enfant Grec), and Petros Markaris for Lixiprothesma dania. Furthermore, Arnaud Leparmentier has won in the essay category for Ces Français fossoyeurs de l’euro. The other contestants were Ulrich Beck for Das Deutsche Europa, Michel Aglietta and Thomas Brand for Un New Deal pour l’Europe ?, and Yves Charles Zarka for Refaire l’Europe avec Jürgen Habermas.

The headquarters of the European Parliament in Brussels hosted on Wednesday evening the seventh edition of the European Book Prize. Barcelona writer Eduardo Mendoza won in the novel category for An Englishman in Madrid, while Arnaud Leparmentier was distinguished in the essay category for Ces Français fossoyeurs de l’euro (in English,  These Frenchmen, digging away the grave of the Euro) .

The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, and the President of the Sponsorship Committee of the European Book Prize, Pascal Lamy, were at the helm of the award ceremony. The jury was formed of European journalists and chaired by French Philosopher Bernard -Henri Lévy. Amongst previous Jury presidents were Costa- Gavras, Julian Barnes, Volker Schlöndorff , Ezio Mauro Jorge Semprun and Henning Mankell.

The ceremony paid tribute to Jean Daniel, founder of Le Nouvel Observateur, Eugene Scalfaro, founder of La Repubblica, and Adam Michnik, founder of Gazeta Wyborcza.

The European Book Prize

Founded in 2007 by the association Esprit d’Europe, along with the support of Jacques Delors, the European Book Prize is awarded annually to both a novel and an essay expressing a positive vision of Europe. The authors of both works are contemporary writers, who must come from member states of the European Union.

The Sponsorship Committee makes a first selection among the books that are published within the EU during the year. A dozen works, five essays and five novels, are then allowed to compete and are presented to the jury. The winner in each of the two categories receives € 10,000.