Christmas award

The Nadal Novel Prize is a literary prize for unpublished works awarded since 1944 by Ediciones Destino (belonging to Grupo Planeta since 1988). It is the oldest prize in Spain and has been received by prominent writers of literature in Spanish. It is delivered on January 6 of each year, and since 1958, at the Ritz hotel in Barcelona. In 2023 it is endowed with €30,000; Until 2009, a finalist prize of €6,000 (previously one million pesetas) was awarded.

History

The Nadal Prize was created by the Barcelona Destino magazine in 1944, in homage to the memory of its former editor-in-chief, Eugenio Nadal Gaya, who died that same year at the age of 27. Eugenio Nadal was a professor of Literature, had written a book entitled Cities in Spain and was the author of numerous essays and articles.

The first prize was awarded on January 6, 1945 in the now-defunct Chinese café on La Rambla in Barcelona and only 26 works were presented. At the time of the ruling, only six or seven people were present, including collaborators and friends of the publisher. The members of the jury were: Ignacio Agustí, Joan Teixidor, José Vergés, Juan Ramón Masoliver, Álvaro Ruibal and Rafael Vázquez Zamora, the latter acting as secretary.

In 2010, the granting of the finalist category was suspended when Destino created the Francisco Casavella Novel Prize for young talent, which was canceled in 2014.

Since 1968, the Josep Pla Prize has also been awarded on the same evening for prose works in Catalan, without gender limitations.

After being acquired by Ediciones Destino by Grupo Planeta in 1996, the Nadal Prize took a more commercial turn, being awarded to outstanding and already consolidated figures of Spanish literature, and not to new literary values, which until then had been its main task.^{[citation required]}

Awarded

• Only six unborn authors in Spain have won the award: the Colombians Manuel Mejía Vallejo (1963) and Eduardo Caballero Calderón (1965), the Argentines Luis Gasulla (1974), Juan José Saer (1987) and Guillermo Martínez (2019), and Najat el Hachmi (2021), born in Morocco although of Spanish nationality.
• The authors with several awards, including finalists, have been Gabriel García-Badell (finalist in 1970, 1972, 1977 and 1979), Manuel Barrios (finalist in 1962 and 1964), Francisco García Pavón (winner in 1969 and finalist in 1945 and 1967), Lorenzo Silva (winner in 2000 and finalist in 1997) and Carmen Amoraga (winner in 2014 and finalist in 2007).
• The youngest prize winner was Carmen Laforet, in 1944, for Nothing.24, and the youngest finalist was José Ángel Mañas, in 1994, Kronen Stories23 years old.
• The finalist work of 1994, Kronen Stories, by José Ángel Mañas, sold 80,000 copies, many more than the winning work, BlueRosa Regàs.

Winners and finalists

The year is reflected according to the official chronology, in which, Juan Pedro Aparicio, awarded in 1989 for the edition marked as 1988, is followed by Juan José Millas, awarded in 1990 for the edition marked as 1988. 1989-90, and Alfredo Conde, awarded in 1991 for the edition already marked as 1991.