Saúl Cepeda Lezcano wins the 13th Eurostars Hotels Travel Narrative Award

Eurostars Grand Marina Hotel 5* will hold on Thursday, June 29, the award ceremony of this prize within the framework of the traditional summer party in Hotusa Group: “Mirando al mar”. Hotusa Group gives €18.000 in cash to the winner and guarantees the edition and distribution of the awarded work around the almost 11.000 rooms in the 97 hotels Eurostars Hotels has in the main destinations in Spain, Europe, Latin America, the United States and Africa. Also, in some months, RBA Libros will edit the book to sell it in Spanish bookstores.

The literary prize, launched by Hotusa Group with the collaboration of RBA Libros and the University of Barcelona, reached a record figure in participation, with 201 original stories submitted by authors from 24 different countries. In particular, most of the received works were coming from Spain -a total of 112- followed by 85 texts from Latin America. The other works come from different countries, among which are the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, China, Ireland, Israel, Mongolia and Portugal.
The jury in the Eurostars Hotels Travel Narrative Award is formed by the writers Carme Riera, member of the Royal Spanish Academy; Alfredo Conde, Premio Nadal and National Novel Prize; as well as Ana Sanjurjo, director of Hotusa Hotels; Adolfo Sotelo; dean of the Faculty of Philology of the University of Barcelona, and Luisa Gutiérrez, editorial director of RBA Libros.

The awarded story

A character with no name seems to run from something and gets to a new country (Mexico, as we believe while reading the story) by sea. A journey through its geography starts here, describing the strangest and unique events that take place in the different areas where he steps on, chapter after chapter, kilometre after kilometre.

Cuentakilómetros is torn between novel and travel book and takes us to an unusual reality which is close to the Latin American magical realism. A skilful structure made up of brief chapters that work out in an almost autonomous way, giving shape to a story in which the intrigue is excellently provided to finish with an unexpected plot twist. It turns the concept of the travel narrative up a notch.

The autor

Saúl Cepeda Lezcano, from Irun, is a journalist, political scientist and jurist; he was involved in student associations to defend intellectual property at the university. He worked as creative director, nightclub manager and environment activist. In 2006 he invented a new system of time representation. He collaborates as a columnist on gastronomy, travel and social topics in different media such as On Madrid (El País), Sobremesa and Rolling Stone, and he has travelled many countries, including conflict areas such as the Balkans.

In 1998 he was the youngest finalist in the history of the Antonio Machado Short Story Award and in 2003 he won the 14th Food and Travel Award El Chiscón on gastronomy and traveling. He is the author of the stories Delitos para llevar (Eba, 2012), and the novels Previsto (Estvdio, 2013) -honored with the 16th edition of the José María de Pereda Award- and Aforo completo (Tropo Editores, 2015) and the essay -coauthor- Legumbres, semillas nutritivas para un future sostenible (FAO, 2016).