Isabel Allende wins €1m Premio Planeta with sequel to The House of the Spirits
Isabel Allende has won Spain's €1m (£843,000) Premio Planeta for her novel La hora antes del alba. The Guardian
The award was the 75th edition of the prize. Allende, a Chilean writer, was 84 when she won.
She entered the competition under the pseudonym Luz Ventura. Her manuscript was submitted under the fictional title Los que faltan. The prize is open to unpublished manuscripts and permits authors to submit under a false name.
The ceremony was held in Barcelona. It was attended by King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia.
La hora antes del alba is a sequel to Allende's 1982 debut novel The House of the Spirits. It follows Alba, the granddaughter of Esteban Trueba and Clara del Valle, as she recovers from imprisonment and torture during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Allende said the book will bring the universe of The House of the Spirits to a close.
The Premio Planeta is run by the Planeta publishing group. The winning book must be published by Planeta. Allende had been published by Plaza & Janés, an imprint of Penguin Random House, since The House of the Spirits.
Her books have sold more than 80 million copies worldwide and have been translated into more than 40 languages. Past winners of the Premio Planeta include Juan Marsé. In 2021, the prize was awarded to La bestia, published under the name Carmen Mola and later revealed to be the work of three male writers, Jorge Díaz, Agustín Martínez and Antonio Mercero.
