Tuesday, July 01, 2008

San Clemente Literary Prize

From Xesús Fraga, Barnes's Galician translator:

Julian Barnes has been awarded the Arcebispo San Clemente literary prize in the category of foreign fiction for Arthur & George. The prize is given by a jury formed by students from five secondary schools of Galicia, in the Northwest of Spain, who choose the best novel they've read in the last year in three categories: written in Galician, in Spanish and any foreign language. Arthur & George received six votes, while the other shortlisted novels, Terrorist, by John Updike, and Italian Shoes, by Henning Mankell, received one and three votes.

Previous winners of the San Clemente prize have been Paul Auster, Javier Marías, Mario Vargas Llosa, Alessandro Baricco, Jonathan Coe, José Saramago, Antonio Tabucci, Carlos Fuentes and Manuel Rivas, among other writers. All of them visited Santiago de Compostela to receive their prize. The next ceremony will probably be held in March and last year's winner, Haruki Murakami, will also attend.