Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain award the 2016 Cervantes Prize to Eduardo Mendoza

The Ministry for Education, Culture and Sport awards the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, worth 125,000 euros, to writers who help enrich the legacy of Spanish literature with works of outstanding quality. It was first awarded in 1976 to Jorge Guillén and since then 42 authors have won the prize. In 1979, the prize was awarded, ex aequo, to Jorge Luis Borges and Gerardo Diego. Since then the rules of the prize do not allow it to be shared, declared void, or awarded posthumously.

Jury

The jury which awarded the Cervantes Prize to Eduardo Mendoza on November 30 was formed by Pedro Álvarez de Miranda, representing the Spanish Royal Academy, who also served as Chair; Ana María Nafría, from the Language Academy of El Salvador; Antonio Sánchez Trigueros, appointed by the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (Spanish acronym: CRUE); Liliana Weinberg, representing the Union of Latin American Universities (Spanish acronym: UDUAL); Luisa Castro, appointed by the Director of the Cervantes Institute; Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente, representing the Minister for Education, Culture and Sport; María Luisa Ciriza, from the Federation of Press Associations of Spain (Spanish acronym: FAPE); Teodoro Rentería, from the Latin American Federation of Journalists (Spanish acronym: FELAP); and Urszula Aszyk-Bangs, representing the International Association of Hispanists.

The Director General for Book and Cultural Industries acted as Secretary (with speaking but not voting rights), and the Deputy-Director General for the Promotion of Books, Reading and Spanish Literature (also with speaking but not voting rights) acted as Minutes Secretary.

Biography

Eduardo Mendoza Garriga (Barcelona, 1943) is a law graduate. He lived in New York working as a simultaneous translator for the UN. He has been a lecturer at the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting at Pompeu Fabra University.

He has published many novels: La verdad sobre el caso Savolta (1975), which was awarded the Critics Prize; El misterio de la cripta embrujada (1979); El laberinto de las aceitunas (1982); La ciudad de los prodigios (1986), awarded the City of Barcelona Prize; La isla inaudita (1989); Sin noticias de Gurb (1991); El año del diluvio (1992); Una comedia ligera (1996), for which he was awarded the Prize for the Best Foreign Book in Paris in 1998, which also recognised his entire work; La aventura del tocador de señoras (2001), Book of the Year by the Gremio de Libreros de Madrid [Madrid Booksellers Guild]; El último trayecto de Horacio Dos (2002); Mauricio o las elecciones primarias (2006), which won the José Manuel Lara Foundation Novel Prize; El asombroso viaje de Pomponio Flato (2008), which won the Terenci Moix Prize and Silver Pen at the Bilbao Book Fair; short story collections Tres vidas de santos (2009); and Riña de gatos: Madrid 1936, winner of the Planeta Prize in 2010. He co-authored the work Mi madre es un pez (2011) and his most recent works include El enredo de la bolsa y la vida (2012) and El secreto de la modelo extraviada (2015). He was awarded the National Prize for Literature by the Regional Government of Catalonia in 2013.

Some of his works have been made into films, including La verdad sobre el caso Savolta, El misterio de la cripta embrujada, and La ciudad de los prodigios. In 1990, his play, Restauració, was first staged; it was written in free verse in Catalan. In 1991, this same play, translated into Spanish by the playwright, opened the Madrid International Theatre Festival and was also staged at the International Theatre Festival held in Lisbon, Porto and Evora. As well as being a playwright he produces theatre adaptations, such as his version of the Arthur Miller play A view from the bridge, first staged at the Albéniz Theatre in Madrid in 2001, and William Shakespeare's A midsummer night's dream, staged in 2003.

Among other writers he has translated William Shakespeare, Lord Byron and Edward Morgan Foster.