(Information sent by the signatory company)
• The 19-year-old writer, from Zaragoza, has won this award with Imago, a story that was born seeing an image on Pinterest that blended with a scene from New York.
• "Powerful protagonists, fantastic documentation and a superb ending", three of the facts that the jury highlighted the most about the award-winning novel, together with the story itself, brave and unconventional.
Madrid, February 16, 2023.- Sara Vaquero Ponz, from Zaragoza, has won the XVIII Jordi Sierra i Fabra Award for Young People, to which authors from Andorra, France, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Spain have submitted, in an edition marked by the increase in the quality of originals presented, with the majority of fantasy novels, with fewer references to institutes and more ecological concerns. Of the 36 originals presented, only one has addressed the subject of suicide.
Jordi Sierra i Fabra has congratulated the participants in these awards that his Foundation has been holding for 18 years, because “they have undertaken the wonderful challenge of writing. And let no one think that one work has won and the others have lost, because it is not like that. One wins, but the others compete. The merit of writing a novel is yours, but the pleasure of seeing it finished is priceless. That pride is not taken from you by anyone."
This young woman from Zaragoza wrote Imago in the summer of 2022, and she had the idea while finishing the novel with which she competed in the last edition and with which she was on the Gold Honor List.
Sara Vaquero, a law student, has won with a novel with powerful protagonists, with fantastic documentation and a superb ending, three of the facts that the jury highlighted the most along with the story itself, brave and unconventional.
Fantastic intrigue in the time of Julius Caesar
Imago is a story full of intrigue that takes place in the Rome of Julius Caesar, although it is by no means a classic novel, since, from fantasy, the central idea is based on the existence of some beings that paint the soul of the people.
The jury for this edition was made up of Berta Márquez (editorial manager of Children's and Youth Literature at SM), Elena O'Callaghan (writer), África Vázquez (writer and winner of the Jordi Sierra i Fabra Award 2008), Pep Durán (bookseller , representing the Fundació Jordi Sierra i Fabra) and Arturo Padilla (writer and winner of the I Jordi Sierra i Fabra Award in 2006).
The fight for some ideals, protagonists of the finalist worksThe second classified in this edition of the Jordi Sierra i Fabra awards has been the novel Las cenizas de Lyrithea, by María Gutiérrez Duarte, from Leioa, Bizkaia, a classic fantasy story, with a lot of magic and epic dyes. It tells how a great kingdom fragmented into six and how, through an initiation journey, the fight to recover unity is developed. The third classified has been Where the stars fall, written by Irene Alcázar Holgado, from Villafranca de Ebro, Zaragoza, and which tells the harsh story of the battle of Belchite, one of the bloodiest of the Spanish civil war, through the eyes and the life of the protagonist, a girl forced to grow up suddenly, and to say that she is a boy in order to work and survive. Another outstanding author has been María Snoussi, finalist and Honor List, respectively, in the two previous editions of the award. The XVIII Jordi Sierra i Fabra Literary Award will be presented in the coming months, with the presentation of the winning novel already published by SM.
More information on the Jordi Sierra i Fabra Awards for Young People.
Children's and Young People's Literature at SM SM advocates children's and young people's literature of high literary quality and a playful approach, which encourages a taste for reading and transmits human, social and cultural values that help improve the world around us. In its publications and services, literary quality, training capacity and success among the reading public come together. It offers collections adapted to each age group, for which it selects the best authors and illustrators.
es.literaturasm.com
Communication SM Spaincomunicacionsm@info.grupo-sm.com
Carmen Palomino - (34) 91 422 62 09 Goretti Redondo - (34) 91 422 67 66
www.grupo-sm.com/es
