El Formentor de las Letras Awardone of the most prestigious Spanish literary talents, will award this year to a Portuguese writer Gonçalo M. Tavaresaccording to the decision made today by the jury.
According to the law, we invite them “to reveal the unexpected consequences of humanity experienced in the same way, to calculate the paradoxical epic of the contemporary extravío, for the courage with which he has created a story that is prepared to face the temptations of accusation”.
Tavares, one of the largest Portuguese companies nominated for the Nobel Prize (Saramago said I would like him someday) as well as António Lobo Antunes, who was unanimously elected by Jurado de Formentor, made up of Elide Pittarello, Gerald Martin, Sonia Hernández, Pilar del Río and Basilio Baltasar.
“By diluting the strict lines that separate traditional literary genres, Tavares has been promoting literary work for the past twenty years strong personality, striking originality and vigorous imagination”the Formentor Prize 2026 event continues.
Gonçalo M. Tavares was born in Luanda (Angola) in 1970 and spent his childhood in the north of Portugal. A writer, playwright and poet, he is considered by critics to be one of the most original, ambitious and enlightened voices of contemporary European fantasy.
With a multidisciplinary education, he studied physics, sports and art before he started teaching. Currently, e.g Professor of Theory of Science and Epistemology at the University of Lisbonan academic wit that permeates the work with surgical precision of language and constant exploration of the boundaries of logic and reason.
Since its debut in 2001 with Dance bookTavares has built a vast and powerful body of work that has been translated into more than fifty idioms and published in more than 70 countries. He is the third most translated Portuguese author, after Fernando Pessoa and Eço de Queirozwith 226 publications worldwide.
Engage in large-scale production to create projects as wide as possible I know the cycle of novels as well as I do El Reino -which includes basic names like Jerusalem y Learn how to repair in the age of technology—, a series of short stories Surroundings y monumental epic Trip to India.
The last published book is a satirical and dystopian work entitled About Fim dos Estados Unidos da América (Relogio D’Agua, Lisbon, 2025). Other previous titles released in Spain are Encyclopedia y The girl is lost in the XX century.
“I only write a sentence when I have to make a decision”he stated in an interview with El Cultural. Also abogaba in that conversation for clarity of language. “I spend a lot more time simplifying than writing. I can say something in five words instead of saying it in five words.”
According to the legal experts who chose the Portuguese author, “his work of fiction involving a person whose extravagances can be attributed to the most unusual, extrañas and unexpected dimensions of the human condition. One of the merits attributed to Tavares’ work was given a form, a presence and a voice that the culture would prefer to omit. In this way, it allowed the clairvoyance of a decisive liberating exorcism”.
The story of Formentor also states that “Tavares’ narrative scenarios evoke the penumbra that overshadows the soul of human beings, while at the same time unfolding a story that seeks the possibility of redemption in its text. The mystery of pain and the beauty of desire collide in it.” ficciones as a mystery of mysteries announced and never consumed”.
Tavares has sido praised on many occasions by other great contemporary writers. JM Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, expressed deep admiration for his book Learn how to repair in the age of technology.
Another winner of the Nobel Prize, Olga Tokarczuk, thinks: “Gonçalo M. Tavares is a great writer who continues the best examples of the European literary tradition. He is masterful and original. His unique perspective and style can be recognized from the first page of each novel. He is one of the few writers in the world capable of constructing a parabolic story.”
For Enrique Vila-Matas, the portuguese author is “brilliant”; and for his compatriot António Lobo Antunes, Tavares is “the most respected” of the great writers.
Like other old country intellectuals, consider this “The cultural exchange between Spain and Portugal tends to flow more naturally. We are older, we are human,” he said in another interview in El Cultural.
Despite this galardón, Tavares was recognized far and wide in his literary tradition with José Saramago Award (Portugal, 2005); Camilo Castelo Branco Award (Portugal, 2006); Premio Internacional de Trieste (Italy, 2008); Belgrade Poetry Prize (Serbia, 2009); Prize for the best book Extranjero (France, 2010) por Learn how to repair in the age of technology; Oceanos Prize (Brazil, 2007 and 2011); European Literary Prize (2011); Grande Prémio de Romance e Novela (APE, 2011); Vergília Ferreira Literary Award (Portugal, 2017); Bellas Artes Margarita Michelena Award (Mexico, 2019); Universidad de Lisboa Award (Portugal, 2019); and el Prix Laure-Bataillon (France, 2021).
Previous editions of the Formentor Prize have included the likes of Hélène Cixous, László Krasznahorkai, Pascal Quignard, Liudmila Ulítskaya, César Aira, Cees Nooteboom, Annie Ernaux, Mircea Cărtărescu, Alberto Manguel, Roberto Javier, Juana-Calasso-Ricardo Piglias Goytisolo and Carlos Fuentes.
The Reader of Literature Prize was born in 1961 and was promoted by a group of European publishers associated with Seix Barral, such as Carlos Barral, with the aim of promoting excellent literature and giving international exposure to lesser-known authors elsewhere.
It was awarded until 1967 and was reclaimed in 2011 under the auspices of the Fundación Formentor and under the patronage of the Barceló and Buadas families, who from there established themselves as one of the most prestigious literary talents of the Hispanic world.
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