The
past week-end, during the Gothic Week of Madrid (Semana Gótica de Madrid), in a
ceremony held at the National Museum of Romanticism in Madrid, the Spanish
Horror Writers Association (Asociación Española de Autores de Narrativa de Terror) has announced the winners of 2014 Premios Nocte:
BEST NATIONAL NOVEL
El hombre que nunca sacrificaba las gallinas Viejas (The Man Who Never
Sacrificed Old Hens) by Darío Vilas (Tyrannosaurus books)
Marquitos Laguna has
retired from his job. Now he prefers to care for his garden and to collect the
eggs of his hens. Before, in other age, Marquitos was a vigilante of few words,
a crytozoological killer in the abundant island of Simetría, a two meters wall of
punches sheathed in a glove of a man in a black suit. But not anymore, his
darkest nights were left behind. Or it is what he believed until a few hours
ago. Because suddenly, the old hens, the ones he never sacrifice, God knows
why, have started to flutter here and there, leaving all covered in feathers.
The land of the garden that now is dedicated to caring, has begun to tremble.
The rotting flesh of a lifetime in black strives to break through from the base
of jagged and broken fingernails. And Marquitos, a two meters wall of love down
at heel, fears the worse:
That his darkest
nights return. That he’ll choke with the smell of a Magnolia.
Or that the time to sacrifice
again has come.
“The Man Who Never
Sacrificed Old Hens” is a story of bizarre realism, of an island that houses
all the human filth, of ghosts from the past returning to down whiskey glasses on
a bar counter. Of imaginary vampires, of mental zombies accompanying the
protagonist and of a vengeful entity intending to finish a murder masterpiece:
The Blue Magnolia.
BEST NATIONAL SHORT STORY
La mirada del Dodo (Dodo’s Gaze) by José María Tamparillas (Anatomías secretas / Nostrum)
BEST NATIONAL ANTHOLOGY
Umbría (Umbria) by Santiago Eximeno (El humo del escritor)
The city of Umbría is
a kaleidoscope of perversion and loss, an universe of stories linked by elements
such as barbed wire, sex and loneliness, a place that allows Santiago Eximeno
to demonstrate the explicit horror of human nature. Umbría is origin and
destination and it is present in the memories of all those who have hidden
their fears.
With this collection,
besides raising a physical and tangible Umbría, Santiago Eximeno gives form to
one of the best and most striking examples of argumentative potential of the
fix-up technique in literature.
BEST TRANSLATED BOOK
La Casa de Hojas (The House of Leaves) by Mark Z. Danielewski (Alpha Decay)
HONORARY AWARD
Congratulations to all the winners!
No comments:
Post a Comment