Chilean-American author Isabel Allende has won Spain’s one million euro Premio Planeta for her unpublished novel La hora antes del alba
, entering the competition under the pseudonym Luz Ventura. King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia presented the award in Barcelona during the 75th anniversary gala.
Pseudonyms, Secrets, and Publishing Surprises at the Fira de Barcelona
The competition allows participants to submit manuscripts under a pseudonym, a tradition that has frequently caught the literary world off guard. Entering as Luz Ventura with a fictional title Los que faltan
, the 84-year-old writer claimed the €1 million Premio Planeta, which stands among the most financially valuable literary prizes in the world. The gala marked a venue shift for the milestone 75th edition, moving from the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya to Pavilion 1 of the Fira de Barcelona.
The award itself holds deep roots in the Spanish literary calendar, having been established in 1952 by editor José Manuel Lara Hernández in homage to his wife, María Teresa Bosch, originally created to promote Spanish writers. Over the decades, the contest has grown into a major fixture, though it has occasionally courted controversy over its winners, such as in 2021 when the collective pseudonym Carmen Mola revealed three writers: Jorge Díaz, Agustín Martínez, and Antonio Mercero. This year’s triumph also marks the first time in twelve years that the accolade has crossed the Atlantic to honour a Latin American writer, following Mexico’s Jorge Zepeda Patterson in 2014.
Her new book moves her work directly into the Planeta publishing group, which funds the namesake prize, adding to an extensive collection of honors that includes Chile’s National Literature Prize and the Barcino Historical Literature Award from the Barcelona City Council. Following the ceremony, the author described the honor as being ‘like the Nobel Prize’.
Returning to Alba Trueba and the Shadow of the Pinochet Dictatorship
La hora antes del alba
serves as a sequel to The House of the Spirits
, the magical realist family saga published in 1982 that established her international career, which has sold 75 million copies in 50 languages and been adapted for the cinema. The new narrative follows Alba, the granddaughter of characters Esteban Trueba and Clara del Valle, as she attempts to piece her life back together after imprisonment and torture under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Allende explained that years of readers’ questions about Alba’s subsequent fate prompted her to write the sequel.
The political backdrop of the novel mirrors historical wounds that remain deeply personal for the author.
Now that I see so many democracies threatened by authoritarianism, extreme nationalism, and even fascism, I feel again the fear that led me to leave my country.
Isabel Allende, author
Sergio Hernández Claims the Runner-Up Prize for Historical Fiction
Spanish writer and screenwriter Sergio Hernández came second in the competition: his historical novel La añoranza received €200,000.
The competition’s jury and organizers reflected on the broader emotional resonance found across this year’s finalists. Speaking as a spokesperson for the edition, Luz Gabás noted that the manuscripts consistently emphasized the desire to find peace and the need for healing
in an increasingly turbulent global climate.
