John Banville Prince of Asturias Award for Literature 2014

At its meeting in Oviedo, the Jury for the 2014 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, composed of Xuan Bello Fernández, Amelia Castilla Alcolado, Juan Cruz Ruiz, Luis Alberto de Cuenca y Prado, José Luis García Martín, Álex Grijelmo García, Manuel Llorente Manchado, Rosa Navarro Durán, Carme Riera i Guilera, Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente, Fernando Sánchez Dragó, Ana Santos Aramburo, Diana Sorensen, Sergio Vila-Sanjuán Robert, chaired by José Manuel Blecua Perdices and with José Luis García Delgado acting as secretary, has decided to confer the 2014 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature on the Irish novelist John Banville for his intelligent, insightful and original work as a novelist, and on his alter ego, Benjamin Black, author of disturbing, critical crime novels.

John Banville’s prose opens up dazzling lyrical landscapes through cultural references in which he breathes new life into classical myths and beauty goes hand in hand with irony. At the same time, he displays an intense analysis of complex human beings that ensnare us in their descent into the darkness of baseness or in their existential fellowship. Each of his works attracts and delights for his skill in developing the plot and his mastery of registers and expressive nuances, as well as for his reflections on the secrets of the human heart.

Oviedo, 4th June 2014