Tayari Jones’ novel ‘Kin’ wins the Kirkus Prize for fiction, earning a $50,000 award

Madrid has seen Isabel Allende win Spain's prestigious Planeta Prize on Thursday, awarded to her novel "The Hour Before Dawn." The prize comes with a €1 million ($1.16 million) cash prize. Allende's novel follows a character from her acclaimed work "The House of the Spirits," published in 1982. Allende, 84, described the win as akin to receiving a Nobel Prize.

The novel focuses on Alba, the granddaughter of Esteban Trueba and Clara del Valle, as she reconstructs her life after imprisonment and torture under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. This win marks a shift in Allende's career; after four decades with Plaza & Janes, she now publishes with Planeta, which funds the Planeta Prize.

Allende, who was forced to leave Chile after the 1973 military coup against her uncle President Salvador Allende, often returns to themes of exile, memory, and the resilience of women who endure violence in her fiction. In her acceptance speech, Allende remarked that her book's timing was apt as the "topic is in the air" due to the threats democracies face from authoritarianism, extreme nationalism, and even fascism. She expressed a renewed fear that led her to leave her country four decades ago.