The Spanish writer received the most prestigious award of the Mexican contest.

With a pessimistic and critical speech on the future of literature and the world itself, the Spanish author Enrique Vila-Matas, was awarded today the FIL Prize for Literature in Romance Languages, the most prestigious at the Guadalajara International Book Fair. The president of the Mexican National Council for Culture and the Arts (Conaculta), Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, personally presented the award to Vila-Matas, saying it recognizes the work of authors “with a significant contribution to the literature of our times.»

"Perhaps I adjust to that premise because I have always written about the need to find themes that question us strictly of present times, about the need to find structures that are not limited to reproducing models that were already obsolete a hundred years ago," he said. Those attending the opening ceremony of the fair, heard as the author of works such as "Bartleby y compañía” (Bartley and Company) or "El mal de Montano" (Montano’s Illness) read a speech entitled "Future", in which he strongly critizized current literature.

Read more here: ABC Cultura