The journalist Sonsoles Onega (Madrid, November 30, 1977) receives a brutal boost in her career as a writer after being proclaimed winner of the LXXII Planeta Prize with the novel The maid’s daughters, presented with the provisional title of autumn without you and under the pseudonym Gabriela Monte. The Father’s Blood, by Alfonso Goizutea Alfaro, was the finalist.
The story signed by Gabriela Monte (Sonsoles) stars a Galician family. It is a historical novel, with a romantic plot. It is the story of two girls, one rich and one poor, exchanged at birth. It is also the story of a family of Galician businessmen that travels through the first two thirds of the 20th century in Cuba and Galicia where the protagonists are women of different generations.
Sonsoles Ónega has gone on stage and received the award. “My voice trembles,” she began with his speech. “I thought I had done the most difficult live shows of my life but it was clear that I still had something nice in store. I confess that it is the most difficult of my life,” she revealed. And she has dedicated the award to “writers with children” and “children of writers.”
But, apart from the apparent surprise of the winner, the name of Sonsoles was loudly heard this Sunday after it was leaked that it was among the ten finalist works and was a clamor among the guests present at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Mnac). This award means much more than million euros with which it is endowed.
The presenter of the Antena 3 evening show is not making her debut as a writer with the work that consecrates her (and that changes your life, as they say). In 2004 she published the short novel Havana Street, Obispo corner. Would follow Where God was not, about 11-M. His greatest success until tonight was the novel After Love (2017), set in Spain during the Second Republic.
We were talking about support for many reasonsamong others because the Planeta chain has just put value on your own presenterwhich battles every afternoon with its competition in the war for audiences, unleashed after the disappearance of Save me and the arrival of Ana Rose at the afternoons. It is not likely, although not impossible, that in the traditional promotion that Paneta guarantees to its winner (and the finalist) Sonsoles is interviewed by Ana Rosa.
The battle between them so far has been settled slightly in favor of Sonsoles, who wins most days, although the daughter of Fernando Onega presents a two-hour program without commercial breaks and has better coverage than what was Queen of the Mornings until last season. Ana Rosa Quintana also edited that book with the Planeta publishing house titled Ice Moons, which was withdrawn after it was proven that it was a plagiarism carried out by the former brother-in-law of Ana Rose, the brother of journalist Alfonso Rojo.
The winner of the Planeta Award is Atresmedia’s rising star. Interviewed days ago by himself Pablo Motos in The Anthill, It is not too surprising, beyond her qualities for narrative, that Planeta, the main shareholder of the listed company, values the merits of the reporter, who will feel more comfortable with certain whitewashing or intellectual promotion after changing her facet years ago. from a “serious” journalist, as a parliamentary correspondent, to that of a presenter of the so-called infotainment programs.
The brand new winner of Planeta is separated from Carlos Pardo, the father of her children Yago and Gonzalo. Later she was known to have a relationship with the architect Cesar Vidal, with whom he was almost two years, until the fall of 2022. Months ago, Informalia announced that she had a new boyfriend, and weeks later the magazine Ten minutes photographed the presenter with the businessman during a weekend getaway to Galicia.
Record participation with 1,129 novels
The finalist novel, awarded with a prize of 200,000 euros, has been The King of the East, a historical novel about Alexander the Great, by Alfonso Goizueta, presented under the pseudonym Luis Parterrío. The LXXII Planeta Novel Prize has confirmed “abundance” of the crime and testimonial novel genre and of female characters among the 1,129 works presented to compete for the prize that was awarded this Sunday, October 15 in Barcelona, during a literary dinner at the National Museum of Art of Catalonia (MNAC).
This is how the jury member explained it Juan Eslava Galan on Saturday at the usual press conference the day before the gala with several members of the jury, including the president of Grupo Planeta, José Creuheras, who claimed the booksellers for being “the bridge” between authors and readers.
The prize won by the journalist and presenter Sonsoles Ónega is worth 1 million euros, five times what the finalist work received, which was for ‘El rey del este’, by Luis Parterrío (pseudonym), a historical novel that shows the two faces of Alexander the Great.
In addition to Eslava Galán, the jury was made up of José Manuel Blecua, Pere Gimferrer, Carmen Posadas (president), Rosa Regàs and Fernando Delgado, as well as the director of Editorial Planeta and secretary of the voting Jury, Belén López.
Creuheras highlighted that this edition has registered a “record participation” with 1,129 novels presented, 461 more than the previous year, a growth that he attributed to the fact that this year it was allowed for the first time to deliver the originals in digital format.
With the works presented this year, the contest has already accumulated more than 27,000 copies presented, and Crehueras has expressed his gratitude to the anonymous writers and booksellers, and has claimed the latter as “the bridge” between authors and readers.
Among the ten finalists are ‘Sexudario’, by Mar de Mármara (pseudonym), a crime novel in which a homeless man and a police inspector team up to search for a serial killer; and ‘Dexados’, by Lorenzo Fernández Prieto, a historical thriller in which a young journalist inherits a valuable manuscript. In ‘El reencuentro’, by Tintaleve (pseudonym), the protagonist will dive into her own memories and discover jealously guarded secrets of the past, and in ‘Tears at the bottom of the sea’, by Clara Isabel Aguilar Esteban, the survivors of a boat They will share their stories and fears and create an unbreakable brotherhood.
Novel biographies and women’s stories
‘Li Qingzhao’, by Pilar González España, is the fictionalized biography of the Chinese poetess Li Qingzhao, whose life takes place in the 12th century and under the vicissitudes that caused the fall of the Song dynasty, and ‘Autumn without you’, by Gabriela Monte (pseudonym), is the story of the fighting women of a family of Galician businessmen and their canning empire.
Finally, ‘Another Heaven’, by Elizabeth Gothelf, is a story of personal growth through three generations of women in an Argentine family, and ‘Shadows on the Wall’, by Karla Munich (pseudonym), is the fictionalized biography of the botanist. Russian geneticist Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov.
The origin of the novels received this year is very diverse: in addition to Spain, with 482 works, South America stands out with 309, while the rest of the originals come from North America (96), Central America (33), the rest of Europe (20) and Africa (1), in addition to the 188 that do not specify their origin.