Carmen Mola is a collective pseudonym of three Spanish writers of crime thrillers. The real authors are Jorge Díaz, Agustín Martínez and Antonio Mercero , best known as television scriptwriters.
6-525: In 2021, the authors won the €1,000,000 Premio Planeta de Novela , the richest literary book or author prize in the world . Mola is known for "ultra-violent Spanish crime thrillers" featuring police inspector Elena Blanco, and has been described as the Spanish Elena Ferrante . The Beast is a historical thriller set in a cholera epidemic in Madrid in 1834. Her writing was recommended by
12-440: A female pseudonym. The authors said it was purely random, but some critics claimed it was a shrewd marketing move that bordered on the unscrupulous: there had been fake interviews with a woman presumed to be Mola, and a picture on the publisher's website showing a woman with her back to the camera identified as Mola. Premio Planeta de Novela The Premio Planeta de Novela is a Spanish literary prize , awarded since 1952 by
18-512: The Instituto de la Mujer de Castilla-La Mancha (Women's Institute of Castilla–La Mancha ) as a selected "feminist reading." Prior to October 2021, the name Carmen Mola was said by the publisher to be the pseudonym of a female writer born in Madrid , a professor in her late 40s and mother of three who wrote crime thrillers in her spare time. After "her" book La Bestia ( The Beast ) was awarded
24-593: The 2021 Premio Planeta de Novela for an unpublished novel, it was revealed during the award ceremony that the name actually represents a group of three men. They are Spanish television scriptwriters Jorge Díaz, Agustín Martínez and Antonio Mercero , all in their 40s and 50s. The €1,000,000 was the most valuable book or author prize in the world , followed by the Nobel. The three script writers were friends who in 2017 decided to pool their talents writing crime thrillers. There has been some controversy as to why they chose
30-520: The Spanish publisher Grupo Planeta to an original unpublished novel written in Spanish. It is one of about 16 literary prizes given by Planeta. Financially, it is the most valuable literary award in the world for an author or book , with the winner receiving €1,000,000. It was created by José Manuel Lara Hernández in 1952 and is awarded on 15 October, St Teresa 's day, Teresa being the name of Lara's wife. Since 1974 there has also been an award to
36-421: The runner up, which now stands at €200,000. In recent years its credibility has been called into question, with the first prize often awarded to authors published by Planeta, and the second to less known authors. The award has been declined by Miguel Delibes and Ernesto Sábato , both Planeta authors. In 2005, an Argentinian court fined Planeta 10,000 pesos after finding that there had been fraud in awarding
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