Enrique Vila-Matas Wins the 2026 National Prize for Spanish Literature

Deep Vellum and Dalkey Archive Press are delighted to congratulate Enrique Vila-Matas, who has won the 2026 National Prize for Spanish Literature, granted by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. 

The National Prize for Spanish Literature recognizes the entire literary oeuvre, in any of the Spanish languages, of a Spanish author whose work is considered an integral part of contemporary Spanish literature

The jury granted Vila-Matas the prize “for his decisive influence on contemporary narrative, his contribution to the Borgesian tradition in Spanish, as well as for his formal originality and fidelity to the metafictional spirit of Cervantes throughout a long and exemplary career.”

The jury goes on to praise how “his profoundly philosophical, poetic, and unrestrained work reflects on the role of literature in the modern world and engages in dialogue with that of other authors—nonconformists and daring thinkers, capable of confronting failure in a kind of personal abyss—thus creating a unique canon that connects us enduringly to the most essential human values. A master of the twist and a specialist in opening new fronts, Vila-Matas is an unclassifiable and surprising writer, whose wit and passion for literature have made him one of our most renowned authors on the international stage.”

We congratulate Enrique Vila-Matas for this recognition of his enormous achievements, and we look forward to the publication of his novel Never Any End to Paris by Dalkey Archive Press in June 2027.

Enrique Vila-Matas was born in Barcelona in 1948, and is the author of more than twenty works of fiction, including Montano’s Malady (published by Dalkey Archive Press), Bartleby & Co, Never Any End to Paris, Dublinesque, Mac’s Problem (finalist for the International Man Booker), The Illogic of Kassel, and Vampire in Love. He is a Knight of the French Legion of Honor and has won the Formentor Prize, the prize of the Royal Spanish Academy, the City of Barcelona Prize, the Romulo Gallegos Prize, the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, the Prix Medicis-Étranger, and numerous other awards. He is a perennial frontrunner for the Nobel Prize.