Sebastià Alzamora wins the Lletra d’Or prize for ‘Sala Augusta followed by Llengua materna’

PalmaThe memory of the prisoners of Can Mir and that of a mother who sewed shoes continue to bring recognition to Sebastià Alzamora. The writer from Llucmajor has won the Lletra d’Or for the best book published in Catalan in 2025 for Sala Augusta seguit de Llengua materna (Proa). The distinction, announced this Monday, comes just over a month after the National Poetry Prize, which the Ministry of Culture granted him on September 15 for the same volume. With this new award, the book has already accumulated five.

The Lletra d’Or is added to the Critics' Prize, the Crítica Serra d’Or, the Josep M. Llompart of the Cavall Verd awards, and the National prize. These are recognitions for a volume formed by two long poems that unite the history of Mallorca with the author’s family memory. The jury for this last distinction justified the choice with a gloss by Xènia Dyakonova, which highlights that the work makes one laugh and cry and that it “speaks of the dead in a fair way”.

The cinema that had been a prison

The first poem takes its name from the Palma cinema hall built on the site of Can Mir, a former factory converted into a prison during the Civil War. There, the imprisoned Republicans suffered subhuman conditions and many waited to be taken to be executed. Alzamora starts from this place to recover the memory of the victims of the 1936 Francoist uprising.

The discovery of that past set the writing in motion while the author was working on the novel Reis del món. The cinema where he had gone all his life hid a history of repression that he was unaware of. The poem grew from that impact, as he explained to ARA on the occasion of the National Prize.

The second part, Llengua materna, approaches another memory: that of childhood and his mother's work as a shoe stitcher. The memory of accompanying her to deliver shoes to the factory is the origin of a poem that also pays tribute to the women who supported their families by working for the Majorcan footwear industry. The death of his mother, in the autumn of 2021, after falling ill with covid, transformed the text during the writing process.

“The death of my mother ended up transforming the poem and the whole book”, explained Alzamora to ARA last September.

Five awards for the same work

The relationship between these two memoirs had already been highlighted by the jury of the Josep M. Llompart award, which in March recognized the moving and committed nature of the book and the unity formed by the two parts. Now, the Lletra d’Or adds the recognition of one of the most unique awards in Catalan literature.

The jury for this edition is composed of Borja Bagunyà, Míriam Cano, Xènia Dyakonova, Andreu Gomila, Àngels Gregori, Llucia Ramis, and Pau Sif. As is tradition, jeweler Carles Capdevila will soon present the author with a gold lapel pin featuring the Greek letter phi, a classic symbol of balance.

The award upholds the independence of literary criteria and places the quality of the texts at the center of the distinction, regardless of commercial considerations. Alzamora thus joins a list of winners that includes Salvador Espriu, Josep Pla, Mercè Rodoreda, Joan Fuster, Carme Riera, and Baltasar Porcel. In recent editions, it has been received by Teresa Pascual, Irene Solà, and Victoria Szpunberg.