Imanol Caneyada, winner of the 2020 Agustín Yáñez National Short Story Award, for his book “An Old Prostate and a New Country,” received recognition from the authorities of the Ministry of Culture of Jalisco.
The ceremony was held this Wednesday afternoon, in the Elías Nandino Chapel of the Ex Convento del Carmen.
The jury, made up of Carmen Villoro, Claudina Domingo and Amaranta Caballero, chose the text by Imanol Caneyada for “presenting a precise and clear dynamic where language participates as a protagonist in all its levels and contexts. A powerful narrative voice, a consolidated literary proposal, framed in pertinent contemporary stories that denounce the harshness of the human condition.”
During the ceremony, the author of “An Old Prostate and a New Country” said he was grateful to those who made it possible to maintain this contest despite the pandemic. “This is one of the most prestigious awards in the story, a genre that commercial publishers unfortunately do not want to embrace... and this award also serves for those authors who work on the short genre, the short story, the story, they can find spaces for publication ”.
He also highlighted that events like this allow “to reactivate the cultural sector, one of the hardest hit by the pandemic issue and one of the most forgotten and unprotected. He urges that these types of activities return to what we have called normality and hopefully it will be the beginning of a reopening for many more things.”
Imanol Caneyada is a storyteller and journalist of Basque origin but Mexican by adoption. He has published the short stories “Stalin's Red Nose,” “The City Before Dawn,” “The Confines of the Sand,” and “Stories of Gay Science Fiction.” He also published the novels A Camel in the Eye of the Needle, Show for Ostriches, It Will Take a While to Die, The Naked Walls and Hotel de Arraigo, among others. He obtained the José Rubén Romero 2020 Fine Arts Novel Prize for his work Nomada.
The members of the jury decided to give an honorable mention to the book “El Guardián de mi Padre y Otros Cuentos,” authored by Valentín Chantaca González for being a book that forcefully brings together -under a precise and fluid narrative- the reality of the current social context. The images and style he uses reach high emotional levels.
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