Photo courtesy of the Edebé press department.
Mónica Rodríguez (Oviedo, 1969), with the novel Rey, and Pedro Ramos (Madrid, 1973), with the novel An ewok in the garden, are the winners of the XXX edition of the Edebé Children's and Young People's Literature Award.
winning novels
These are two works that are shocking due to the harsh reality they present, with a language in which words are often as important as silences.
Rey
Inspired by a true event, is a journey to the depths of the human soul that offers us Mónica Rodríguez to try to understand how a niño who must survive among a herd of stray dogs, in which he finds competition and love. A story full of poetry, through snowy landscapes and deep forests, which investigates how the little one faces the abandonment, abuse or the loneliness, and above all to the beasts… be they animals or humans.
Un ewok in the garden
Pedro Ramos addresses the dark moods, the characteristics of the depression and suicide, plague that is spreading in society, among young people who seem to have everything and yet feel that they are nothing. This novel is the reminder that, despite the sabotage of the mind, which at some point punishes us all with guilt, sadness and self-punishment, even with the idea of taking our own lives, always there is something to add to that list of reasons to stay alive.
30 years with children's and youth literature
In this edition the 30 anniversary since the Edebé Children's and Young People's Literature Award he began his journey.
This year the prize has gone to two authors who have a long and recognized career in children's and youth literature. Participation in the contest is anonymous and each year the jury launches its hypotheses about who is hiding behind the winning escrow without failing to surprise itself over and over again, but the truth is that since January 1993 they have read and awarded wonderful works, discovered new pens and contributed to consolidate the career of already established authors.
The publisher is proud of the jury's intuition and some of the best examples of its criteria are: the winner of the first edition in the youth category, a then unknown Carlos Ruiz Zafón who, at only 28 years old, took the prize with El Príncipe de la Niebla; or the three works awarded the Edebé Prize that later obtained the National Prize for Children's and Youth Literature, ratifying them as exceptional works of their kind: La isla de Bowen, by César Mallorquí, Palabras poisonadas, by Maite Carranza and this 2020, the frankenstein effect de Elia Barceló.
Also the Edebé Award crosses borders and there are already more than 143 international editions of the awards as a whole, translations in 25 countries and into 22 different languages, from German, French, Italian or Portuguese, to Persian, Hebrew, Chinese or Korean. Of these translations, the winner in the Children's category of 2013, Moss, de david cirici, which also won the prestigious 2017 Strega Ragazzi Award, and Palabras envenenadas published in 16 countries.
The award
The Edebé Award has a total economic endowment of 55.000 euros (€30.000 for youth work and €25.000 for children's work), being one of the highest prizes in the country. To this XXX edition have been presented 239 manuscripts originals from all corners from Spain y from many other countries in the world, especially from Latin America. From those, 140 have been presented in the form Infant y 99 in the modality Juvenile; 193 were written in Spanish, 29 in Catalan, 9 in Galician and 8 in Basque.
The works will be published in March en paper and in ebook in the 4 languages of the State, as well as in braille. And since 2017, thanks to an agreement reached with the platform Storytel, are also published in audiobook.
Source: Edebé press department.