Now in his second term, the director of the Royal Spanish Academy is named Liber 2024’s Most Outstanding Latin American Author.

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

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‘Impact Throughout the Spanish-Speaking World’

In our story today (August 30) from the teeming pool of international book and publishing  awards, it’s the Spanish Royal Academy director Santiago Muñoz Machado who has been announced as winner of the “Most Outstanding Latin American Author” award from the 2024 Liber publishing trade fair series in Spain.

As Publishing Perspectives readers know, this is a show that divides itself between Madrid and Barcelona, and this year, Liber 24 will be hosted by Barcelona, October 1 to 3.

The award in question—clearly made to reach across the Spanish-language world when its organizers want it to do that—is conferred by the Federación de Gremios de Editores de España, the Federation of Spanish Publishers’ Guilds (FGEE), which you’ll remember recently has appointed Madrid-based José Manuel Anta—particularly well known to many regular trade visitors at Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 16 to 20)—as its new managing director.

In issuing its citation for this article, the federation says, “With this award, the FGEE wishes to recognize Muñoz Machado’s closeness to the world of books and his work as an essayist in the social sciences, as well as the impact of many of his works and essays throughout the Spanish-speaking world”

Examples of the content the federation is praising include:

• Hablamos la misma lengua: Historia política del español en América (We Speak the Same Language: Political History of Spanish in America, From the Conquest to the Independences) from Grupo Planeta’s Editorial Critica, referred to as a work on “plain language”
• Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Legal Spanish (DPEJ) from Grupo Planeta’s Espasa, a volume in which some 400 professors, judges, and academics from both sides of the Atlantic have participated

‘Contribution to Public Service’

Born in Pozoblanco (Córdoba), Muñoz Machado holds a PhD in Law, is a technician in the Civil Administration of the State (1972), professor of Administrative Law, successively, at the University of Valencia (1980-1982), the University of Alcalá de Henares (1982-1994) and the Complutense University of Madrid (1994-2014), lawyer, writer, academic, researcher and editor.

Muñoz Machado is the author of almost 100 books and myriad articles and studies on various subjects.

In 2013, he received the National Essay Prize (Report on Spain. Rethinking the State or Destroying It) and, in 2018, the National History Prize (for Hablamos la misma lengua).

More works highlighted are: The Problem of the Structure of the State in Spain: From the 18th Century to the 21st Century (2006); the trilogy Report on Spain: Rethinking the State or Destroying It (2012); Catalonia and the Other Spains (2014); Riofrío: The Justice of Mr. Judge (2010); and Cervantes (2022).

Muñoz Machado was elected director of the RAE in December 2018 and re-elected in 2022. He is the president of the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language (ASALE) and is vice-president of the Foundation for the Spanish Royal Academy and a state councilor.

He also directs the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Legal Spanish and the Ibero-American Legal Platform, the Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Language , the Clear and Accessible Language Program and, since 2020, the new Chronicle of the Spanish Language , published annually. Muñoz Machado is also in charge of the Coordination Secretariat of the Pan-Hispanic Network of Clear and Accessible Language, the first conference of which May at the royal academy.

“Muñoz Machado,” the award’s organizers say, “has also stood out for his contribution to public service, developing initiatives and studies in the most diverse social sectors, such as health, disability, and dependency.”

The Liber awards, as you’ll recall, are to be presented on October 2 at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC).

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More from Publishing Perspectives on book and publishing awards is here, more on the Spanish market is here, and more on Spain’s industry-oriented Liber series of trade shows in Barcelona and Madrid is here.