Winner of €1m Spanish prize revealed to be three men

In Spain, the winner of the €1 million (A$1.57m) Planeta Prize, Carmen Mola, has been revealed as a pseudonym for three men, reports the Bookseller.

Carmen Mola won the prize for the historical thriller The Beast, published by Penguin Random House. Mola was known to be a pseudonym, supposedly for a university professor and their mother. Instead, at the awards ceremony, the writers were revealed to be established Spanish television scriptwriters Jorge Díaz, Agustín Martínez and Antonio Mercero.

‘Carmen Mola is not, like all the lies we’ve been telling, a university professor,’ the writers told the Financial Times. ‘We are three friends who one day four years ago decided to combine our talent to tell a story.’

The writers said they chose the name ‘by chance and for fun’, and without consideration of the possible implications of the gender of the name. ‘I don’t know if a female pseudonym would sell more than a male one, I don’t have the faintest idea, but I doubt it … We didn’t hide behind a woman, we hid behind a name.’

Mola is best known for a trilogy of novels starring police inspector Elena Blanco, which have been translated into 11 languages and are being adapted for television by Endemol Shine and ViacomCBS International Studios.

Category: International news