Leila Guerriero won the Critics' Award at the Book Fair for her book The Call
“Silvia Labayru remained in her cabin. The immediate future was a passage to nowhere. She assumed the military was interested in her pregnancy, but she couldn't take it for granted.” Words that capture, with the power of an image, the prisoner's day in the depths of that hell called ESMA and that are part of The Call. A Portrait , that non-classical book written by Leila Guerriero and awarded the 2024 Critics' Prize at the Book Fair.
After a tough four-round selection process, the book published by Anagrama took home the prize and was celebrated with great applause by the jury gathered just hours after the official opening of the 49th International Book Fair .
The voters were journalists and cultural managers Cristina Mucci, Natalia Blanc, Eugenia Zicavo, Flavia Pitella, Juan Carlos Aldazábal, Patricio Zunini, Silvina Friera, Héctor Pavón, Agustina Larrea, Verónica Abdala, Susana Reinoso, Alejandro Bellotti, Ignacio Iraola, Maxi Legnani, Osvaldo Quiroga, Leonor Fleming, Omar Genovese, Graciela Aráoz, Danilo Albero, and Antonio Las Heras, and the vote was chaired by Santiago Kalinowski of the Argentine Academy of Letters.
Guerriero's award includes a prize of $800,000. The jury was chaired by Nelly Espiño. Ezequiel Martínez, executive director of the El Libro Foundation, was present but did not vote. The award will be presented on May 3 at 4:00 p.m. at the Fair (Rodolfo Walsh Room).
Leila Guerriero (Argentina, 1967) is a journalist. Her work has been published in various media outlets in Latin America and Spain: La Nación and Rolling Stone in Argentina; El País in Spain; Gatopardo in Mexico; and El Mercurio in Chile, among others. She is the Latin American editor of the Mexican magazine Gatopardo. She has published the books *The Suicides of the End of the World* and *Strange Fruits*, and, for Anagrama, *A Simple Story*, *Construction Zone*, *American Plan*, *Opus Gelber*. Portrait of a Pianist*, *The Other War*, *The Call*, and *The Difficulty of the Ghost *. In 2010, her text *"The Trace in the Bones"*, published in El País and Gatopardo, received the CEMEX+FNPI award. Some of her books have been translated into English, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Swedish, and Polish.
2023: Music, by Hernán Ronsino, published by Eterna Cadencia
2022: The Laura Ramos Girls, published by Penguin Random House.
2021: I remember Martín Kohan, published by Ediciones Godot.
2020: Eugenia Almeida Flood, published by Documenta Escénicas.
2019. The Jewish Son by Daniel Guebel, published by Penguin Random House.
2018. Reading Excesses, Iconographic Asceticisms by José Emilio Burucúa, published by Ampersand.
2017. Black Out by María Moreno, published by Penguin Random House.
2016. Facundo or Martin Fierro? by Carlos Gamerro, published by Sudamericana.
Playwright Mauricio Kartun won in 2015 for "Terrenal."
2014. Ever closer to Elvio Gandolfo, published by Caballo Negro.
2013. The Novel of Tamara Kamenszain's Poetry, edited by Adriana Hidalgo.
2012. Ballad of Marcelo Cohen, published by Alfaguara.
2011. Collected stories by Hebe Uhart, published by Alfaguara.
2010. Having What You Have by Diana Bellessi, edited by Adriana Hidalgo.
2009. History of Ideas in Argentina: Ten Initial Lessons, 1810–1980 by Oscar Terán (posthumously), published by Siglo XXI Editores and the OSDE Foundation.
2008. The Wanderer, by Hugo Padeletti, published by Fondo de Cultura Económica.
2007. Tartabul, by David Viñas, published by Editorial Sudamericana.
2006. The Trembling Mirror by Abelardo Castillo, published by Seix Barral.
2005. Country that was will be by Juan Gelman.
2004. The sea that brought us by Griselda Gambaro.
2001. Poetic Work by Joaquín Gianuzzi.
2001. Juan José Saer's place.
2000. The escape of Eduardo Mignogna
1999. The Land of Fire by Sylvia Iparaguirre
1998. Strasser's Wife by Héctor Tizón
1997. Borges. Splendor and Defeat by María Esther Vázquez
1996. On the lookout for Isidoro Blaisten
1995. Scenes from the Postmodern Life of Beatriz Sarlo
1995. With this mouth in this world by Olga Orozco
1994. The Restorer's Lover by María Esther de Miguel
1994. Written in the Land by Jorge Calvetti
1993. The Servant by Andrés Rivera
1992. Fire by Eduardo Belgrano Rawson
Clarin
