Only two women among the winners of the 14 categories of Ciutat de Palma 2025

PalmThe presence of women at the official San Sebastián events planned by the Palma City Council (Cort), all of which were cancelled this year due to the Córdoba train accident, is once again very limited. In the musical lineup for the festival announced by the City Council, women did not reach 25%.Among the winners of the Ciutat de Palma awards, women are even fewer: they don't even reach 15%. Only two women have been awarded prizes in this edition, across fourteen categories. One of them, the category for novels in Spanish, has been declared void, according to the press release published by the City Council in place of the awards ceremony, which was scheduled to take place this afternoon at the Principal Theater in Palma. According to a municipal announcement, an event will soon be organized at the City Hall itself to present the awards.

The two women recognized this year are journalist Victoria Morell, who receives her second Ciutat de Palma award for the project NUDE –a podcast and a documentary—in this case in the journalism category; and the artist Inma Femenía, winner of the Visual Arts prize for the work Free fall. Just a year ago, eight women and eight men took to the stage to collect one of the Ciutat de Palma awards, and two years ago these same awards already recognized an overwhelming majority of menAlthough in 2024 four women were recognized, compared to 17 men.

In any case, among the winners of the new edition of the awards is the Mallorcan journalist Jaume Oliver Ripoll, who has been recognized with the Ciutat de Palma Llorenç Villalonga novel prize for his work One day we will storm the city with iron horsesIn this work, among other things, he imagines an alternate reality in which the Republic is declared the victor of the Civil War. "I've tried to sew reality and fiction together seamlessly," Oliver commented in a conversation with ARA Baleares, clearly moved by receiving this award, and took the opportunity to champion literature as a way to sound "cries of alarm." In the poetry category, the winner of the Joan Alcover Prize was Francesc Pastor from Valencia, recognized for his work In Paradisum. Mon Joan Tiquat, in the music category for the album Synonyms for thingDaniel Cuesta, in performing arts for the production Chocolate, and Pau Santiago Roda, in comics by Pending cases: Go Home These are some of this year's other winners.

The prize for the best novel in Spanish was declared void.

And the controversy continues with the prize for novels in Spanish, which Cort incorporated into the 2024 edition, despite complaints from organizations and writers. If last year there was a last-minute change to the award – after a warning from a journalist of the Daily of Mallorca, The City Council revoked the prize initially awarded to Antolina Ortiz Moore for the work Smoke blue, Since the work had already been published and was therefore ineligible, the category has been declared void this year. This is despite it being one of the awards with the highest participation, surpassed only by the visual arts prize (with 913 submissions and 435 participants) and the Spanish-language poetry prize (with 893 submissions and 741 participants). In the Spanish-language novel category, 733 manuscripts were submitted and evaluated by a preliminary jury of ten people, who made an initial selection of 50. These fifty were the finalists evaluated by the jury—comprised of Sonia López Maestro, winner in this category last year, and Berta—who unanimously agreed to declare the prize void.

These are all the winners in the different categories of this year's edition:

• Prize Lorenzo Villalonga of novel in Catalan (26,000 euros): Jaume Oliver Ripoll for the work One day we will storm the city with iron horses.
• Prize Joan Alcover of poetry in Catalan (12,000 euros): Francesc Pastor Verdú for the work In paradisum.
• Prize Camilo José Cela of novel in Spanish, (26,000 euros): deserted.
• Prize Rubén Darío of poetry in Spanish (12,000 euros): Jorge Fernández Gonzalo for the work Absolute clarity.
• City of Palma Award comic (10,000 euros): Pau Santiago Roda for the work Pending cases: Go Home.
• Prize Bonet de Sant Pere of music (6,000 euros): Mon Joan Tiquat for the album Synonyms for thing.
• Prize Margaluz ofperforming arts (6,000 euros): Daniel Cuesta Centelles for the work Chocolate.
• Prize Maria Forteza ofaudiovisuals in documentary format (6,000 euros): Jordi Nadal Rosselló for the work The Last Cowboy of Hollywood.
• Prize Maria Forteza ofaudiovisuals in short film format (4,000 euros): Francisco Javier Chacártegui Horrach for the work A normal person.
• Prize Montserrat Casas dinvestigation (6,000 euros): Juan Carlos García Reyes and Ester Gutiérrez Mecías for The Pelaires Gallery: A social and cultural history of the artistic context of the city of Palma in the 1970s.
• Prize Miguel de los Santos Oliver of journalism (3,000 euros): Victoria Morell Salom for the work NUDE (podcast broadcast by IB3 Radio).
• Prize Caty Juan de Corral of gastronomy (3,000 euros): José Cortés García. Special mention: Toni Tugores Manresa, for his professional career.
• Prize Guillermo Sagrera ofarchitecture (15,000 euros), winning performance: House of Mercy. Second phase of comprehensive rehabilitation.
• Prize Antoni Gelabert ofvisual arts (12,000 euros): Inma Femenía for the work Free Fall.