The writer Javier Cercas (Ibahernando, Cáceres, 1962) has been boosted with the Award of André Malraux, a new award French to reward a work of fiction “at the service of the human condition”, in reference to the title of the work summit of the intellectual and political French, known for his defense of the rights of man. The award is designed to perpetuate the memory of Malraux (1901-1976) via a novel recently which is distinguished by its political commitment. Fencing has been done with the prize thanks to his latest book, The monarch of the shadows (Literature Random House), in which he recounts the story of his great-uncle, Manuel Mena, who died when she participated in the battle of the Ebro, in the Civil War, being second lieutenant of the Phalanx and which would later be remembered by his family as a hero.
Fences are imposed from a list of nine finalists, which included names like Roberto Saviano or Zadie Smith, in addition to the former minister, the socialist French Aurélie Filippetti and the writer and journalist Philippe Lançon, author of Les lambeaux, which recounts her experience as a survivor of the attack on Charlie Hebdo in 2015. The winner-takes-1.933 € –the year of the publication of The human condition– and a trip around the world. Saviano received a mention from the jury, which included personalities as the writer Laurence Debray and the art historian Diana Widmaier Picasso, “the different battles that he leads with courage”.
In the category of essays on the history of art, the winner was the historian and French curator Georges Roque, Quand la lumière devient couleur, which explores the relationship between light and color in the work of Turner, Manet, Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, or Van Gogh, among others. Roque is responsible for the recent exhibition Red mexican, in the Palace of Fine Arts of Mexico.
Fences, translated into French from the international success of Soldiers of Salamis, in 2001, it has garnered excellent reviews in France with The monarch of shadows, which arrived in bookstores at the end of August the hand of the prestigious publishing house Actes Sud, with a wide range of authors in Spanish and Catalan. “If Javier Cercas has not invented a genre that owes much to Truman Capote of in cold blood, yes it has been revitalized and renovated brilliantly. Their investigations bring together all of the literary genres in the service of a search for truth; once more, no doubt be on the scene to board the best the reader in the complexity of the Story,” said the writer and critic Pierre Assouline, a member of the jury of the Prix Goncourt since 2012.
