Mexican writer Fernanda Melchor will receive the Anna Seghers literary prize this year, along with the German writer Joshua Gross .
Each of the winners will receive €10,000 (USD$11,235) and the prize will be awarded in Mainz, Germany , the Anna Seghers foundation informed yesterday.
Anna Seghers (1900-1983)
is mostly remembered for her novel ‘The Seventh Cross,’ which she published while exiled in Mexico in 1942 .
The award is given to young writers in Germany and Latin America who follow the legacy of Anna Seghers, “fighting for a more just and human society with the resources literature has to offer.”
Born in Veracruz in 1982 , Fernanda Melchor currently lives in Puebla and Mexico City, and is known for writing both news stories and novels.
Her most famous novel is Temporada de huracanes (Hurricane Season), which has been translated into several languages and has been defined as a portrait of Mexico and its demons.
Hurricane Season
was published in Germany by the Klaus Wagenbach publishing house, which specializes in foreign literature.
“Fernanda Melchor is a damn good writer,” said Ralph Hammerthaler, a critic from the Süddeutsche Zeitung .
For his part, Joshua Gross was born in 1989 in Grünsberg, Germany , and currently lives in Nuremberg. He has written several books and texts in literary magazinez.
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