The writer Marina Perezagua receives the III Novel Prize Ciudad de Estepona for ‘La playa’.

The play illuminates and obscures the complexity of motherhood and the bonds between mothers and daughters in a three-part conversation, exploring fears, absences, guilt and death.

The event, which took place in the Auditorium of the Centro Mirador del Carmen, concluded with a performance by the renowned guitarist Daniel Casares Esteponero

The writer Marina Perezagua has received this Tuesday the III Novel Prize City of Estepona for his work ‘The beach’, a book that was submitted to the competition under the title ‘The taste of my mother’. The ceremony took place in the Auditorium of the Centro Mirador del Carmen in the town with the presence of the mayor, José María García Urbano; the president of the Manuel Alcántara Foundation, Antonio Pedraza; Manuel Borrás, literary editor of Pre-Textos; Guillermo Busutil, writer and director of the award; and Manuel Vilas, writer and jury of the award.

The mayor of Estepona, José María García Urbano, stressed the commitment that the City Council has been doing “to link the city with cultural initiatives of first level” by designing a program of activities and competitions throughout the year, the creation of awards such as the Novel or Poetry that bear the name of Estepona, as well as providing the municipality with new spaces for the development of these initiatives, such as the new Mirador del Carmen Cultural Center.

García Urbano stressed the importance of the City of Estepona Novel Prize, “a major cultural project that is a valuable stimulus and recognition to the creators, while enriching the literary field of our country”; and thanked the Manuel Alcántara Foundation, the jury of the award and the participants, their collaboration and dedication “to give it the prestige it deserves and place it among the most prominent competitions in the country”.

The president of the Manuel Alcántara Foundation, Antonio Pedraza, has expressed his “deep gratitude” to the mayor of Estepona “for his strong support and firm interest in the creation of this award”. Pedraza has highlighted the importance of the Premio Nacional de Novela Ciudad de Estepona and its impact on the cultural life of the town. “Today, at the successful closing of its third edition, we are already starting to work on the next edition, with the intention of raising even more the prestige of this award,” he said.

The editor Manuel Borrás, wanted to highlight the solid trajectory that the award has reached “with only three editions, thanks to the quality of the juries”. According to Borrás, “it is important to remember that in the first edition we faced the unfortunate interruption caused by the pandemic. In spite of this, the award is already a reality and a longing within the literary community”. Finally, she has highlighted “the harmony” of the publishing house with the institutions that collaborate in the call for entries.

“In ‘La Playa’, Marina Perezagua opens the womb of her prose to perform a catharsis on the dark side of motherhood, the feeling of bonding with the helplessness and survival of newborns,” explained Guillermo Busutil, director of the award. “And as usual in her novels, in which always underlies the plot of the wound and a story within the story, the writer also dissects the relationship of the woman who becomes a mother with her own mother, and the emotional shadows and emptiness of affection,” he said.

Upon receiving the award, Marina Perezagua thanked the Manuel Alcántara Foundation and the Estepona City Council for making this contest possible. “In my case it is a particularly significant award because after living outside Spain for more than half of my life, it is like returning to my homeland through my passion: writing,” she said. “This award means for me not only a literary recognition, but a welcome, a return,” continued the writer, who also thanked all the members of the jury and the “great editing work” of the publishing house Pre-Textos.

“I hope that readers enjoy this novel that narrates themes that I believe that any person, to a greater or lesser extent, has suffered and loved in certain vital moments. This is what family relationships are like, imperfect but profound, both in abandonment and in love,” concluded the writer.

After the award ceremony, there was a discussion between Marina Perezagua, Guillermo Busutil and Manuel Vilas. La playa’, as the writer Guillermo Busutil pointed out, “is the story of a triple shipwreck, honest, audacious, courageous in the intimacy and daily life of what is told, whose umbilical cord is a language that is both stark and tender at the same time. An example of the literature with which Marina Perezagua reflects through the scarp of her writing about a subject that desacralizes romanticism to explore the pain, the doubt, the wound, the nakedness of motherhood, and move the reader”.

Afterwards, those attending the award ceremony were able to enjoy a performance by the renowned guitarist Daniel Casares, who delighted the audience with his flamenco sounds.

The Jury

A jury made up of renowned members of the Spanish literary and journalistic community evaluated the nearly 700 works submitted last September. Among them were Spanish poet and writer Manuel Vilas, finalist for the Planeta Prize in 2019 and winner of the Nadal Prize in 2023; writer, translator and journalist Ángeles Caso; Hispanic philologist and journalist David Felipe Arranz, who is also a professor at the Carlos III University of Madrid and collaborates with several media outlets; writer and journalist Eva Díaz Pérez; Silvia Pratdesaba, editor of Editorial Pre-Textos; and writer and journalist Guillermo Busutil, winner of the National Cultural Journalism Prize in 2021.

The jury defined the work as “a thought-provoking novel that both illuminates and sheds light on the complexity of motherhood and the bonds between mothers and daughters. In a three-voice conversation, the story explores fears, absences, guilt, death, and turns hospitals and medical terminology into literary territory”.

Marina Perezagua

Marina Perezagua has a degree in Art History from the University of Seville. She taught Hispanic American language, literature, history and film at the State University of New York, where she earned her PhD in Hispanic Philology. After living for a long period in France and working at the Instituto Cervantes in Lyon, she returned to New York, where she taught creative writing at New York University as Distinguished Writer in Residence.

She is the author of the short story collections ‘Abyssal Creatures’ and ‘Milk’. She has published three novels: ‘Yoro’, ‘Don Quijote de Manhattan’ and ‘Seis formas de morir en Texas’ (Anagrama), a book of poetry: ‘Nana de la Medusa’ (Espasa) and ‘A -122 metros’ (Planeta), a technical book, but of hybrid genre about the runner-up of the world freediving championship and the benefits of this sport, co-authored with Miguel Lozano.

She has been published in several anthologies and literary magazines, such as Renacimiento, Carátula, Sibila, Ñ, Quimera, Granta, Letras Libres, Jot Down, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, Anfibia. She has been translated into nine languages and her novel ‘Yoro’ was awarded the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize 2016. She is a contributor to El País.