Gustavo Valle has again won the Premio de la Crítica de la Novela for his surreal adventure Happening, having been awarded the 2009 prize for Bajo Tierra.

Judges Luis Miguel Isava, Adriana Cabrera and Luis Alfredo Álvarez, chose Happening out of a shortlist of 12 for the prize, run by Ficción Breve and the Fundación de la Cultura Urbana. They announced:

For the coherent execution of its aesthetic project, manifest in the use of narrative techniques ranging from humour, pain, drama, melancholy and reflection, we declare Happening by Gustavo Valle the winning novel. This novel constitutes, in our opinion, a work which, while exploring an existential vein, presents a vision of the world as a thriller in which uncertainty and chance are the critical axes, all of which is held up in the idea of the happening as the central thread [of the novel].

Valle’s novel was also awarded the XIII Premio Anual Transgenérico and was recently republished in Argentina by Autoría Literaria.

The three other finalists were Jinete a pie by Israel Centeno, La ciudad vencida by Yeniter Poler and Los escafandristas by Fedosy Santaella. Read more about them from Ficción Breve.