After nine poetry anthologies, the expert comedy writer has made the leap to novels with El mapa de los afectos, which outmatched 350 other manuscripts.

She is the sixteenth woman to have won the prize. Since a very young Carmen Laforet won the first Nadal Prize with Nada in 1944, only 14 other women have won the oldest literary award in Spain. Last night, at the traditional gala dinner at the Hotel Palace in Barcelona (formerly The Ritz), another writer won the 76th Nadal Prize: the poet Ana Merino.

And with it, the last twelve editions of the contest, an endowment of 18,000 Euros, have been split evenly: six men and six women have won it. Her novel El mapa de los afectos (presented under a pseudonym and with the title Campos de fuerza) outmatched 350 other offerings.

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