Overview

• Award organizers confirmed a US$150,000 endowment recognizing a lifetime body of work across Romance languages.
• This year’s selection evaluated 48 authors from 18 countries, drawn from 63 candidatures in six languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Galician and Catalan.
• The jury comprised Alain Mabanckou, Carmen Alemany Bay, Francisco Noa, Jerónimo Pizarro, Lucía Melgar, Massimo Rizzante and Xavi Ayén.
• Speaking by videolink from Paris, Maalouf called identity the central question of our time and said literature can remedy how we treat one another.
• He cautioned that the world is in a perilous period, criticized weak global solidarity and narrow migration stances, and maintained that catastrophe is not inevitable.