And the winning novel is The plains from Federico Falco“, said Claudia Pineiro, jury of the Medifé-Filba Prize, around 7:30 p.m., when it was still daylight, on the terrace of Eterna Cadencia. It was this Tuesday that the winner of the second edition of this literary contest was revealed, which awards the winner 500 thousand pesos. In the place were the finalists, editors, readers, journalists. Too Jorge Consiglio, Julieta Venegas, Hernán Ronsino, Valeria Tentoni, Juan Ignacio Pisano (winner of the previous edition), Ricardo Romero and Noah jitrik, among many others.
The jury, which chose Falco’s novel among the 204 nominees, was made up of Sergio Bizzio, Vera Giaconi and Piñeiro. First they released a long list of ten novels, then the short one with five and finally won The plains. The four works that were left on the doors are Blind marathoner from Emilio Garcia Wehbi, Not a river from Rainforest Almada, Dear lord from Paul Katchadjian and Confession from Martin Kohan. “We would have liked to choose more than one winning novel,” said Piñeiro and described The plains as “a novel of ideal beauty” that “describes a world to which one can go to heal.”
“On the list were all incredible novels,” began Falco on the terrace of Eterna Cadencia, thanking the award. Then he said that many people wrote to him feeling identification with the rupture that the book narrates, although many were also “work duels, duels of loved ones, love duels.” “This was a year that we lost a lot. It’s good that this is for everyone [en referencia al premio] and to offer that we are here and that we had a good time ”, he added.
Born in 1977 in General Cabrera, Córdoba province, Falco is one of the most interesting voices in contemporary Argentine narrative. His work consists of four storybooks 222 ducklings, 00 (both in 2004), The time of the monkeys (2010) and A perfect graveyard (2016); the short novel Skies of Córdoba (2011) and the book of poems Made in china (2008). In 2010 he was selected by the magazine Granta as one of the best young storytellers in Spanish. He currently resides in Buenos Aires, where he coordinates writing workshops and co-directs the publishing project Cuentos María Susana.
The plains It is his first novel, with which it could be said that he won the Medifé-Filba Prize with his debut in the genre. The protagonist is a writer in crisis who, after a love breakup, moves to a country house to cope with the duel as well as possible: he sows and harvests the vegetables he is going to eat in the garden and writes month by month how his new progress is and strange life. “Los llanos is a unique novel. The plot is of a stark simplicity that makes it even more overflowing and sharp, “he wrote Patrick zunini.
It is a story that, as it progresses, slides a glance on love, literature, art and life itself in permanent change and at the same time always the same. I made the decision that I did not have access to networks or telephone masts, that I was incommunicado. The figure of the hermit attracts me a lot. It had already appeared in other previous books of mine, in some stories. I wanted to think about that figure, “he said in an interview with Infobae Culture.
“In the city, the notion of the hours of the day, of the passage of time, is lost. In the field it is impossible ”, the narrator of this story begins by saying that, around him, everything makes sense. The seconds, the minutes, the hours, the days, the months, everything moves forward without haste and reveals the tiniest details: the insects, the noises, a falling leaf, the smell of damp earth, the people in that area. new environment, his childhood that reappears, his former partner, Ciro, a memory that returns. Meanwhile, he writes and writes trying to make sense of the chaos.
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