The University of Alicante (UA) has had its teaching represented in the 2026 National Narrative Award. Carmen Alemany Bay, Professor of Hispano-American Literature at UA, was part of the jury for this prestigious award, representing the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE).
The jury, chaired by María José Gálvez Salvador, Director General of Books, Comics, and Reading at the Ministry of Culture, and with Jesús González González as vice-chair, unanimously decided to grant the award to Julio Llamazares for his work El viaje de mi padre.
Llamazares's work was selected for "its profound memorialistic and human depth, with which Julio Llamazares moves with a story where memories, wounds, and so many unanswered questions show us how the traces of the War persist in a territory," as highlighted by the jury.
Alongside the CRUE representative, the jury included members such as María Paz Battaner Arias (proposed by the RAE), Anxo Angueira Viturro (for the Galician Royal Academy), Eneko Barrutia Etxebarria (for Euskaltzaindia), Maite Salord Ripoll (for the Institute of Catalan Studies), Rosa María Agost Canós (for the Valencian Academy of Language), José Belmonte Serrano (for the Spanish Association of Literary Critics), Miguel Barrero Vázquez (for the Collegiate Association of Writers of Spain), María Teresa Antona López (for the Federation of Associations of Journalists of Spain), Brígida Manuela Pastor Pastor (for UNED), and Ramón Rozas Domínguez (for the Ministry of Culture). Paco Cerdà, the award-winning author from the previous year, also participated.
