Argentine writer Guillermo Saccomanno has been awarded the 2025 Alfaguara Novel Prize, a prize of $175,000 (approximately €170,000) and a sculpture by Martín Chirino,
for his work Arderá el viento, presented under the title Vendrá el fuego, and under the pseudonym Jim.
The jury, chaired by Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez and composed of writers Leila Guerriero and Manuel Jabois; film director and screenwriter Paula Ortiz; writer and owner of the La Mistral bookstore (Madrid), Andrea Stefanoni; and Alfaguara's editorial director, Pilar Reyes (with voice but no vote), unanimously declared the novel the winner.
The jury highlighted Arderá el viento (The Wind Will Burn): "It is the story of a degradation, of an agonizing peeling that gradually reveals the miseries of society. Exposed to the influence of the Esterházys, the strange Argentine coastal town reveals the darkness that circulates through its subterranean regions, as if the visitors were a malignant touchstone that can bring the true nature of the characters to light.
Written in a spare style and of rare intensity, the novel is the careful construction of a deterioration that, although set in a specific country, ends up being a distorted metaphor for the spirit of our times.
