Miracle writer wins Spanish prize
Spanish writer Lucia Etxebarria has won Spain’s most lucrative literary award, the Premio Planeta, with the novel Un Milagro en Equilibrio (A Miracle in Equilibrium) in which a mother writes a long letter to her newborn daughter.
The award is presented yearly by Grupo Planeta, one of Spain’s top publishing companies.
The book takes the form of a long letter written by a young mother to her newborn daughter. The idea is for the child to read it when she grows up and thus know her mother better.
Etxebarria gave birth last year for the first time.
At the awards ceremony, she thanked the jury for honouring a book that eschews violence at a time when a “war to defend an oligarchy is packaged as a war in defence of democracy.”
She was referring to the Iraq war, but the book makes no mention of it.
