Spain and Mexico top Granta’s selection of best young storytellers | What’s up

Madrid, April 7 (EFE). Spain (with 6 books); Mexico (with 4), Argentina and Cuba (with 3 each) are the countries most represented in the selection of the top 25 Spanish language narrators under 35 selected by the centenary magazine Granta.

The list of top 25 Spanish-language narrators was released this Wednesday at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid, and also includes authors from Chile, one from Equatorial Guinea, Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, Uruguay, Ecuador and Nicaragua.

This is the second list of writers in Spanish in this literary publication dating back a century after 2010, and it includes the publication of unpublished texts by the authors in the Spanish and English editions of Granta Magazine.

The selected authors are Andrea Abreu, Irene Reyes Nujuirol, Monir Hashemi, David Aliaga, Christina Morales and Alejandro Morellon from Spain; Mexicans Aniela Rodríguez, Andrea Chapela, Aura García-Junco and Matteo García Elizondo; Argentinians Camilla Fabry, Michel Niva and Martin Felipe Castagnet; Cubans: Carlos Manuel Alvarez, Daenerys Machado Vento and Idriss Blanche Savon; And Chilean Paulina Flores and Diego Zunega.

In addition, Stanislau Medina Huesca (Equatorial Guinea), Monica Ojeda (Ecuador), Jose Adiac Montoya (Nicaragua), Milosca Benavides (Peru), Carlos Fonseca (Costa Rica), Jose Ardela (Colombia) and Gonzalo Paz (Uruguay).

Selected by a jury consisting of Aurelio Major, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Gabby Wood, Rodrigo Frisan and Chloe Ariges.

Granta’s boss, Sigrid Rausing, highlighted in a teleconference at the press conference presenting this list on the publication’s effort to “find the best storytellers of their generation and bring them to the world”.

Rausing explained how the challenges of developing this list of narrators in Spanish are greater than those for English writers from the United States or the United Kingdom, because “it is necessary to edit, plan and conscientiously read works from three continents.”

Valerie Miles, editor and director of Granta in Spanish, noted that when, ten years ago, Granta’s “First Snapshot of Generations” was prepared in a language other than English, it was not possible to believe that in drafting the second anticipated list it would be necessary to confront “in the grip of Global epidemic. ” But he said Granta was “a collective dream.”

Although there were “no notes of the epidemic because it was banned,” Miles admitted that it was inevitable that the “ravages of what he lived” were highlighted in the papers submitted.

Writer Aureliano Major, on behalf of the jury, explained how this invitation, which opened at the end of last February, targeted writers in Spanish under the age of 35 and with the publication of at least one book, attended by more than 200 writers, of whom 60 were chosen in terms of Principle.

At the end of June, each member of the jury proposed the first list of 20 nominees and the deliberations that ended with this selection began from 25 writers, 12 percent of those who initially submitted.

Major pointed to the authors who have heterogeneous and even conflicting projects that demonstrate that Granta is “an impure, universal, transnational endeavor.”

According to another member of the jury, Castellanos Moya, this selection discovers the “vitality of literature written in the Spanish language”, while Rodrigo Friesan argues that this generation of writers’ “resistance” to “self-assimilation” has been seen.

Granta was founded in 1889 by students of the University of Cambridge and quickly set a precedent for the success of many authors, at that time still new, such as Sylvia Plath or AA Milne. Almost a century later, 40 years ago, the journal distanced itself from the center of study, becoming the standard it is today.

Rausing, a Swedish philanthropist, acquired the English version in 2005. Under her leadership, 10 editions were launched in different countries with a magazine published both in digital and in hard copy.

In the first list of the best writers under the age of 35, ten years ago, 22 authors were selected, among which Argentina was the country that contributed the most authors, with 8: Olivierio Coelho, Federico Falco, Matthias Nespolo, Andres Newman, Paula Oloyksarak And Patricio Brun, Lucia Bueno, and Samanta Ashweblin.

Spain came second with 6 (Andres Barba, Pablo Gutierrez, Sonya Hernandez, Javier Montes, Elvira Navarro and Alberto Olmos), while Peru contributed on that occasion with 2 (Carlos Yoshimoto and Santiago Roncaliolo), just like Chile (Carlos Labe). And Alejandro Zampra).

The first list was completed ten years ago by the Mexican Antonio Ortono, the Colombian Andres Felipe Solano, the Uruguayan Andres Ricia Colino and the Bolivian Rodrigo Haspin.