Singer Javier Ojeda will perform at the IV Ciudad de Estepona Novel Award Ceremony

The Argentine writer Ariel Magnus will receive the award next Thursday, April 30, in a ceremony that will take place at 7:00 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Mirador del Carmen. The Estepona City Council and the Manuel Alcantara Foundation organize this literary contest, which rewards the winning work with 25,000 euros and its publication in the Pre-Textos publishing house.

The Estepona Town Hall informs that the singer and composer Javier Ojeda will perform at the award ceremony of the IV Novel Prize ‘Ciudad de Estepona’, to be held next Thursday, April 30, in the Auditorium of the Mirador del Carmen, at 19.00 hours.

Javier Ojeda is one of the most beloved artists from Malaga in our country since he became the vocalist of the legendary band ‘Danza Invisible’. Expert in Latin and black music, Ojeda has developed in the last two decades an interesting solo career with cover albums and his own songs, where the crossbreeding and musical research are fundamental. Admission to the event will be free until full capacity is reached.

The IV Novel Prize ‘Ciudad de Estepona’, is organized by the City Council of Estepona and the Manuel Alcántara Foundation. The winner of this edition has been the Argentine writer Ariel Magnus for his work ‘Mentir la verdad. Confessions of a political falsifier’. The prize is endowed with 25,000 euros and the publication of the novel by the publishing house Pre-Textos. Interested readers will be able to purchase it on the same day at the Mirador del Carmen and in bookstores from May 6.

The work recounts the life of Heinrich Jürges, a young German who joined the Nazi Party and is supposed to have worked for Goebbels. He later went to South America, where he joined the Black Front, an offshoot of Nazism. As an independent agitator, through false documents, he generated in 1939 the famous plot of La Patagonia, which led to the prohibition of Hitler’s party activities in Argentina. Back in Europe, he earned his living by offering his services as an informer to the highest bidder.

Mixing real and fictional sources, Ariel Magnus recreates the autobiography of this obscure swindler, trafficker, and propagandist, whose adventures span four decades and two continents and involve various political and cultural figures such as Perón, Borges, and Kafka, among others. The winning work uses irony, cynicism and sarcasm to explore the chiaroscuro of the press in tumultuous times and the miseries of those who work with sensitive information.

Ariel Magnus will collect the award at next Thursday’s ceremony and will hold a brief colloquium with Guillermo Busutil, director of activities of the Alcantara Foundation. The Argentine writer, who currently lives in Germany, has several works published by different publishers and has even been a finalist for the Biblioteca Breve Prize in 2020.

The jury for this edition was made up of renowned members of the Spanish literary and journalistic community. Chaired by writer Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, it was made up of novelists Laura Ferrero and David Uclés; Rafael Arias, head of the Letras Corsarias bookstore; Silvia Pratdesaba, editor of Pre-Textos; and Guillermo Busutil, head of activities at the Manuel Alcántara Foundation.

In their decision they highlighted “the literary quality of an autobiographical fiction on the background of the history of the Nazis established in Argentina, in a literary game with Borgesian and picaresque novel resonances, which connects directly with the current reality through the theme of fake news and informative intoxication”.

Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, president of the jury, pointed out the high level of the finalist novels in this edition, noting that they were all of sufficient quality to be published. In reference to the winner, he said that Ariel Magnus mixes real facts with fiction, “he tells everything with such verisimilitude that the reader doubts what is real and what is invented”. “It has documentary rigor and entertaining prose, something that is appreciated as a reader,” concluded the writer.

Successful participation

Since its creation, the City of Estepona Novel Prize has attracted the attention of writers from all over the world. In its first edition (2021), it gathered more than 300 originals from countries such as Germany, France, Egypt, Canada, USA, Guatemala and Mexico, resulting in the winning novel ‘Tumbas de agua’, by Mexican author Miguel Tapia. In its second edition, participation doubled, exceeding 600 originals, and the winning work was ‘Buitrera’, by Manuel Moya. In 2023, the novel ‘El sabor de mi madre’, by Marina Perezagua, won the award among nearly 700 entries from different parts of Spain, Europe and Latin America.

This year, the City of Estepona Novel Prize has received a total of 771 works from Spain, Europe and Latin America, consolidating its international projection and its role as a platform for the promotion of new voices of contemporary narrative.