The University of Guadalajara, through a project created by the Environmental Sciences Museum as part of the University’s Cultural Center, and with the support of the Guadalajara International Book Fair, has established the José Emilio Pacheco City and Nature Award. The prize, which will be given for the first time this year, will be dedicated to poetry. The winning author, who must write in Spanish and have at least ten unpublished poems or poems published in the last five years that are related to nature, urban sustainability, socio-ecological harmony and environmental conservation, will be given a purse of US $10,000. The award is dedicated to poet José Emilio Pacheco, whose work explores the duality between cities and nature.
Important:
The call closed the past June 2nd
Created by the University of Guadalajara, and with the collaboration of the National Institute for Indigenous Languages, the Culture Ministry, the National Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Cultures and Jalisco’s Department of Education, the American Indigenous Literature Award is granted to enrich, protect and promote the legacy and richness of Mexico’s indigenous peoples through literature in all its forms, and to and acknowledge and further develop the careers and works of indigenous authors. The award, which carries a purse of US $25,000, will be given for the fourth time at the 2016 FIL Guadalajara.
The SM Ibero-American Award for Literature for Children and Young People was implemented in 2005, the year of Ibero-American literature, with the goal of promoting literature for children and young people throughout Ibero-America. The award is given out each year during the Guadalajara International Book Fair to recognize writers of literature for children and young people and carries a purse of US $30,000.
With the goal of creating a network that helps to encourage the work of illustrators of books for children and young people in Ibero-America, the SM Foundation and the FIL Guadalajara invites illustrators to submit their work to be included in the Annual Ibero-American Illustration Catalog. The 45 works selected will be displayed in an exposition at the Guadalajara International Book Fair. In addition, illustrators will have the opportunity to work on an illustrated book with Ediciones SM and the winner will be given US $5,000. You can find more information at: www.iberoamericailustra.com
Guadalajara, Jalisco, September 01, 2025
Amin Maalouf wins the FIL Literary Award in Romance Languages 2025
In its unanimous verdict, the Jury emphasized that the work of the French-Lebanese writer, who will receive the award at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, "reminds us that hope lies in recognizing our shared heritage"
For being “one of the most important voices of our time”, a jury composed of Alain Mabanckou from the Republic of the Congo, Carmen Alemany from Spain, Francisco Noa from Mozambique, Jerónimo Pizarro from Colombia, Lucía Melgar from Mexico, Massimo Rizzante from Italy and Xavi Ayén from Spain, unanimously decided to award the FIL Literary Award in Romance Languages 2025 to Amin Maalouf (Beirut, 1949). In their verdict, the experts indicated that the work of the French-Lebanese writer, who will receive the award on November 29 at the opening ceremony of the Guadalajara International Book Fair, "has an essential place in contemporary literature because it explores with great lucidity the fractures and fusions of the modern world."
The announcement was made this Monday, September 1, at a press conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. The event was presided over by Karla Planter Pérez, rector general of the University of Guadalajara; Luis Gerardo Ascencio Rubio, Secretary of Culture of Jalisco; Héctor Raúl Solís Gadea and Dulce María Zúñiga, president and director of the FIL Literary Award in Romance Languages, respectively; Carmen Alemany Bay, representative of the FIL Literary Award Jury 2025; and Trinidad Padilla López and Marisol Schulz Manaut, president and director general of the Guadalajara International Book Fair.
In this edition, the FIL Literary Award in Romance Languages received a total of 63 nominations. Considering the coincidences, because some institutions and juries proposed the same author, there was a total of 48 writers to be evaluated. The languages represented were six: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Galician and Catalan. As for the authors' countries, 18 were registered: Spain, El Salvador, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Nicaragua, Cuba, Chile, Japan, Lebanon, France, Senegal, Morocco, Guinea, Italy, Cape Verde, Brazil and Portugal.
During the reading of the Jury's minutes, Carmen Alemany Bay said that the novels and essays of the Franco-Lebanese writer "explore memory and exile, while rejecting nationalist or religious rigidity." Maalouf gives voice to the uprooted and the travelers of different eras, showing that our multiple identities are made up of strata, of crossings and passages, rather than walls. His humanistic, critical and generous thought illuminates our era, which is riddled with conflicts between cultures and memories and reminds us that hope lies in the recognition of our shared heritages.”
Amin Maalouf is recognized as one of the most brilliant writers of French literature today. He has dabbled in novels, essays and journalism. A member of the Académie française since 2011, Maalouf has received numerous awards, notable for his advocacy of intercultural dialogue. These include the Prix Goncourt for best book on geopolitics and the Prince of Asturias Award. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. Among them, Leo Africanus, Samarkand, The Gardens of Light, Origins: A Memoir, In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong and Adrift: How Our World Lost Its Way stand out.
The FIL Literary Award in Romance Languages is endowed with 150 thousand dollars and is given as recognition to the whole of a work of creation in any literary genre. The civil association that convenes it each year is made up of the University of Guadalajara, the Government of the State of Jalisco, the governments of Guadalajara and Zapopan, the University of Guadalajara Foundation AC, Arca Continental, Fibra Educa, and Bancomext. Since its first edition in 1991, it has been received by authors such as Nicanor Parra, Olga Orozco, Fernando del Paso, Margo Glantz, Emmanuel Carrère, Claudio Magris, Ida Vitale, Diamela Eltit, Mircea Cărtărescu and Coral Bracho, among other great figures of contemporary literature.
For further information contact:
Press Office and Publicity General coordinator, Mariño González at the phone number (+52) 33 3810 0331, ext. 952