A novel year is over in which the global pandemic has paralysed the world. But it has not managed to halt literary creation; authors, publishers and readers have continued to use the written word to travel to other worlds and times that are probably less unpleasant than the reality.
We review the most important Spanish works of the year; those that have taken some of the most important awards in Spain, some of the best sellers and those most widely read in our country.
Aquitania, Eva García Sáenz de Urturi
The winner of the Planeta Prize – with the highest financial award in Spain – and one of the best sellers of 2020, begins with the death of the Duke of Aquitaine in front of the main altar of Santiago de Compostela cathedral. Furious at his alleged poisoning, his young daughter Eleonor plots a complex revenge on those she believes to be responsible.
Rey Blanco, Juan Gómez-Jurado
This is the third part of the saga with the leading figure of Antonia Scott, which began with ‘Reina Roja’ and ‘Loba Negra’. Since the publication by Gómez-Jurado of the first part in 2018, the tales of adventures, suspense and constant action of this trilogy have captivated more than 1 million readers.
Totalidad sexual del cosmos, Juan Bonilla
National Narrative Prize-winner 2020, the work by Bonilla recovers the figure of Carmen Mondragón, better known as Nahui Olin, one of the most charismatic women of Mexican art in the 20th Century. Born in Mexico, she lived in Paris in the early years of the 20th Century, where she met Braque, Matisse and Picasso. She stood out for her feminist ideas and provocative attitude.
La cara norte del corazón, Dolores Redondo
Prequel to the successful trilogy of Baztán, the story takes place on this occasion in August 2005, a long time before the crimes that begin in ‘El guardián invisible’, during the time of the leading figure in the saga – the police officer Amaia Salazar – in the FBI. This time she is investigating the case of a killer known as “the Composer”, who acts during major natural disasters.
Justícia, Guillem Clua
One of the great successes at the National Theatre of Catalonia in the 2019/2020 season, until the outbreak of the pandemic, this work, which won the National Dramatic Literature Prize, tells the story of a bourgeois Catalan family with close ties to power from 1939 to the present.
Feliz Idade, Olga Novo
National Poetry Prize-winner 2020. The jury that awarded the prize considered the work – written in Galician – “a life-enhancing tale that celebrates love and existence beyond time”, touching on such issues as motherhood, death and historical memory.
Línea de fuego, Arturo Pérez-Reverte
One of his most recent novels that already heads up the list of his most sold books. Pérez-Reverte, the most widely read Spanish author, reconstructs a fictitious chapter in the Battle of the Ebro, the toughest and bloodiest battle of the Spanish Civil War, thanks to abundant preliminary documentation.
El efecto Frankenstein, Elia Barceló
This novel combines such genres as police and gothic fiction. Awarded the National Youth Literature Prize 2020, the tale begins when young Max wakes up in a house in ruins, covered with scars that show he has undergone surgery that he remembers nothing about.
El mapa de los afectos, Ana Merino
This novel won the Nadal Prize, one of the most deep-seated awards in Spain. It portrays the darkest aspects of various characters that make up a small rural community. The secret love affair of a school-teacher, the disappearance of another woman, the infidelities of another neighbour… All of their lives will cross over and intertwine.
La versión de Eric, Nando López
Eric is 20 years old and his whole future as a successful actor lies ahead. But one morning he goes into a police station to confess a crime. The novel, which won the SM Gran Angular Prize for Youth Literature 2020, is a mix of a thriller and first-person narration by the leading character, in which he searches for his identity as a man, his relationship with his family and his childhood.