We celebrate a half a century of the Ateneo de Sevilla Novel Awards, founded by José Manuel Lara, and despite the 500 kilometers it took to get there, ....

we made the trip to tell you all about a dinner - and an award - in a truly incomparable setting: the Royal Alcázar of Seville, a number of palaces and gardens that started being built over a thousand years ago, and kept growing and being embellished by the Muslims, and later the Christians. We were hosted by architect Lola Robador, who was in charge of restoring courtyards, gardens, ponds, and now a gazebo... We were struck by the Gothic palace, built by masons from Burgos in the days of the most famous Spanish cathedral. It was a dinner fit for a king (not because of the menu, but of the surroundings), where the 'all of Seville' that we did not know about was present, and writers such as Nerea Riesco, Mercedes Frías, and Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar, the re-teller of popular tales who just published his memoirs. We also saw former winners, such as Ramón Pernas (“Paso a dos”), Álvaro Bermejo (“La piedra imán”), Luis del Val (“Las amigas imperfectas”) and Pérez Domínguez (“El violinista de Matthaussen”).

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