Luis Landero
has been awarded the
National Prize for Spanish Letters
, corresponding to the year 2022, at the proposal of the jury.
The prize, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Sports, is endowed with 40,000 euros.
This award distinguishes the whole of the literary work, in any of the Spanish languages, of a Spanish author or Spanish author, whose work is considered an integral part of the whole of current Spanish literature.
The jury has highlighted the author "for being an extraordinary narrator, creator of numerous fictions with characters and atmospheres of great expressiveness and excellent writing, recovering the Cervantes tradition with mastery of humor and irony and brilliantly incorporating the role of imagination".
In addition, the jury pointed out that
Landero "belongs to the first generation of Spanish democracy and has played a fundamental role in the renewal of our literature."
"His first novel, published in 1989, was a literary milestone and, in a certain way, historical. He has maintained, with the same eagerness, the pulse and originality that already appeared in his literary beginnings and that has led him to preserve among his readers an enormous capacity for amazement", he added.
Luis Landero was born in Alburquerque (Cáceres), in 1948. In 1960, he moved to Madrid with his family.
He began working at the age of fourteen in various trades such as an apprentice in a machine shop, a delivery boy in a grocery store, or an administrative assistant in a dairy plant.
After the death of his father in 1964, he devoted himself professionally to flamenco guitar, accompanying various singers for a few years.
He studied Hispanic Philology at the Complutense University of Madrid and worked there as assistant professor of French Philology.
He was a professor of Spanish Language and Literature at the Calderón de la Barca Institute in Madrid, at the School of Dramatic Art in the same city and at Yale University.
His first novel,
'Late Age Games', published in 1989, won the National Prize for Fiction and the Critics' Prize
.
He has published 16 books, including 11 novels, which have decisively marked the last decades of literature in our country, occupying a prominent and enormously personal place in what was called the "new Spanish narrative" born in the 1980s. and 90.
Among his works, the following stand out, together with 'Games of the late age': 'Knights of Fortune' (1994, Tusquets), 'The Magical Apprentice' (1999, Tusquets), 'The Guitarist' (2002, Tusquets), 'Portrait of an immature man' (2009, Tusquets), 'Absolution' (2012, Tusquets), 'The negotiable life' (2017, Tusquets), 'Fine rain' (2019, Tusquets), 'Emerson's orchard' ( 2021, Tusquets) or 'A ridiculous story' (2022, Tusquets).
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