‘Of beasts and birds’, by the writer and translator Pilar Adón (Madrid, 1971), has won the 2023 National Narrative Prize for “its great originality, beauty, poetic richness and strength of language.” The prize, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Sports, is worth 30,000 euros.

In Of Beasts and Birds the protagonist, with a drowned sister on her back, arrives at an isolated house, almost a territory outside the world, inhabited exclusively by women. Women who dress in the same way, like followers of an ancestral cult, and who carry out strange rites and celebrations. A place where she might discover what it means to be a part of something.

The jury highlighted that “the story told is as fantastic as it is close and recognizable. The work, written in an impeccable style that at times borders on lyricism, manages to immerse the reader in a disturbing, suffocating and dreamlike atmosphere.” Likewise, the jury highlighted that “Pilar Adón, with her unique voice, outside of fashions and trends, and with a sublime capacity to imagine, builds atmospheres and environments of extraordinary nature that are absolutely captivating.”

Adón accumulates a new award for Of beasts and birds, which has already won the Francisco Umbral Award for Book of the Year 2022, the Cálamo Otra Mirada Award 2022 and the Critics’ Award in the Spanish language 2023. She is also the author of the novels Las hijas by Sara (Alianza) and Las efímeras (Galaxia Gutenberg), by the story books Viajes Innocents (Páginas de Espuma), winner of the Ojo Crítico Prize for Narrative, The Cruelest Month (Impedimenta) and La vida submerged (Galaxia Gutenberg), and by the collections of poems Give Pain, The Orders, Animal Mind and The Hunter’s Daughter. She has translated works by authors such as John Fowles, Penelope Fitzgerald and Edith Wharton.

The jury of the award was presided over by María José Gálvez, director general of Book, Comic and Reading of the Ministry of Culture, and as vice-chairman was Jesús González, deputy director general of Book Promotion, Reading and Spanish Letters. Pedro Álvarez de Miranda, proposed by the RAE, has performed as vocals; Maria Jesus Marine Major, by the Royal Galician Academy; Sebastian Garcia, by the Royal Academy of the Basque Language; Josep Manuel Palomero, by the Valencian Academy of the Language; María Teresa Gómez Trueba, by the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities; Edurne Portela, by the Collegiate Writers Association of Spain; José María Pozuelo Yvancos, by the Spanish Association of Literary Critics; Fernando González Urbaneja, by the Federation of Associations of Journalists of Spain; Teresa San Segundo, by the UNED Center for Gender Studies; Rosa Montero, by the Ministry of Culture and Marilar Aleixandre, awarded at the 2022 convocation.