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Spanish novel about tyrants wins literary prize

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January 8, 2001 

MADRID-- (UNB/AP) - Spanish novelist and screenwriter Fernando Marias has won the Premio Nadal, Spain's oldest literary prize, for a detective story about tyrants.

Marias, the 57th winner of the prize, said his winning novel "El nino de los coroneles" (The Child of the Colonels) was inspired by a news item he read several years ago about the regime of the late Romanian despot Nicolae Ceaucescu.

He said the report alleged that agents working for Ceaucescu abducted Romanian children, took them to isolated places and taught them torture and other acts of cruelty while being raised to be blindly loyal to Ceaucescu for life.

"This story terrified me, and I saw that reality outdid fiction," Marias said Saturday in accepting the prize.

Marias, 41, was chosen from among 387 writers from Spain, Latin America, Europe and the United States.

The Premio Nadal is awarded by Destino, a Barcelona publishing house, and includes a cash prize of 3 million pesetas (dlrs 17,000).