Spain’s literary world has been thrown into confusion after a coveted book prize was awarded to “Carmen Mola” who is a respected female thriller writer who now has been discovered to be the pseudonym of three men.
The three men are TV scriptwriters Antonio Mercero, Agustin Martinez and Jorge Diaz. This revaltion shocked all guests including Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia. The Planeta awards took place on Friday where the three men took to stage to receive tge prize money and revealed that the celebrated writer does not actually exist.
Mola has been compared to Elena Ferrante – Italy’s esteemed novelist. She is described as “Madrid-born author” writing under a pseudonym in order to remain anonymous.
Mola is described on the website using photos of unknown woman who is always looking away from the camera. In other media interviews, Mercero, Martinez and Diaz described Mola as a female university professor who resided in Madrid with her hubby and children.
Mola has written novels which use a character who is a detective known as Elena Blanco. The character is described by Penguin Random House (publisher) as a “peculiar and loney woman” as well as a lover of “grappa, karaoke, collectors’ cars and sex in SUVs.”
The book that won the Planeta Prize was not featuring Blanco. “The Beast” is a historical thriller set during cholera epidemic in 1834 and it features a serial killer who is tracked down by a journalist, a young lady and a policeman.
The Mola novels are famous for their graphic and gory images. The Spanish media has noted that there is a contrast between the live of female university professor and the violent nature of the books that she produces.
El Mundo interviewed the real authors after the revelation “It is not lost on anyone that the idea of a university professor and mother of three, who teaches algebra classes in the morning and, in the afternoon, writes novels of savage and macabre violence and has been a good marketing operation.”
Many writers and authors were shocked by the revelation of the real authors and not everyone was happy with the shocking news. One feminist and writer, Beatriz Gimeno, who once served as the Director of the Women’s Institute – a key national institution in Spain criticized the three authors on Twitter.
“Beyond using a female pseudonym, these guys have spent years doing interviews. It’s not just the name, it’s the fake profile they’ve used to take in readers and journalists. Scammers,” said Gimeno.
To show you how far the Spanish readers had been made to believe that the writer was a woman, in 2020, a regional branch of Women’s Institute included Mola’s work in a list of “feminist reading” alongside the work of Irene Vallejo (Spanish) and Margaret Atwood (Canadian).
Over the weekend, Mola was still listed as an author on the Penguin Random House website.
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