Nadal Prize 2026

This award has been characterized by recognizing novelists who have become part of the literary canon. For example:

1947 La sombra del ciprés es alargada (The Shadow of the Cypress is Long) by Miguel Delibes

1957 Entre visillos (Between the Curtains) by Carmen Martín Gaite

1959 Primera memoria (First Memoir) by Ana María Matute

In 2026, David Uclés was awarded the prize for his novel The City of Dead Lights, published by Destino. A story in which words, painting, music, and theater act as the deep conscience of society; they are what can illuminate it when all seems lost.

The winning work will be available in bookstores in Spain from February 4th.

The Nadal tradition began in 1945 when Carmen Laforet received this distinction for her work Nada.

In this year's edition, with a prize fund of 30,000 euros, 1,207 works were submitted and the jury was made up of Víctor del Árbol, Juan Luis Arsuaga, Inés Martín Rodrigo, Care Santos and Emili Rosales.

What is The City of Dead Lights about?

For an entire day, Barcelona is plunged into darkness, devoid of sunlight or artificial light. Only a subtle blue glow, its source unknown, and the flickering light of fire survive. The Barcelonas of all time converge and overlap in this single place: vanished buildings reappear, and new ones of the future are born. In this territory where eras and perspectives that should never have met coexist, the city is overwhelmed by all its past.

“All the Roman walls reappear, the Expo buildings that were deconstructed return, the Sagrada Familia is finished because all eras are intertwined… All those intellectuals, artists, and writers who made Barcelona their home or who were born here also come back to life. In this ensemble novel, they will try to discover why the light has gone out and attempt to bring it back,” Úcles remarked in his acceptance speech about his novel.

This event will cause various writers and artists to return to life in a Kafkaesque fashion, their paths crossing in improbable encounters. Thus, Picasso will make Simone Weil weep, and Cortázar will portray Laforet; Miró will varnish passersby; Bolaño will anticipate his death, García Márquez will flee in a boat, and George Orwell will protect Montserrat Caballé, Núria Espert, and Jordi Savall from the projectiles of war. Amid this rupture of time, a photographer is able to reveal with his camera what has not yet happened, and many other figures will join their arts to try to understand what has occurred and how to recover the lost light.

The author

David Uclés was born in Úbeda in 1990. He is a writer, musician, illustrator, and translator.

He is the author of the novel La península de las casas vacías (The Peninsula of Empty Houses, 2024), the current literary phenomenon, with over 300,000 copies sold. It has received praise from Ian Gibson, Gioconda Belli, Leonardo Padura, and Irene Vallejo, and has been recognized with some twenty awards, including the Cálamo Prize, the Andalusian Critics' Prize, the Dulce Chacón Prize, and the San Clemente Prize. It was also Spain's candidate for the European Union Prize for Literature and a finalist for the Vargas Llosa Biennial. In 2024, it was chosen as the best Spanish novel of the year by the Babelia jury. It is being translated into more than fifteen languages ​​and will be adapted into a film.

Uclés contributes to La Vanguardia, El País, Diario Jaén, and Cadena SER. His novel La ciudad de las luces muertas (The City of Dead Lights), the fourth in her career, received the Montserrat Roig grant in 2022 and has now been awarded the 2026 Nadal Novel Prize.