Nearly two thousand micro-stories from 28 countries competed for the awards.
Given the substantial similarities between the work deemed the first-prize winner, “Amada mamá,” and another micro-story that won a different contest and has already been published, the jury of the 13th Cardenal Mendoza International Micro-Story Contest has decided to withdraw the award from that work and award it to “Dicotomía post mortem.” Therefore, the list of winners is as follows:
First Prize: “Post Mortem Dichotomy.” This is a short story with an eschatological theme and a dry sense of humor. Its author is Esteban Torres Sagra, a career civil servant residing in Úbeda. As a writer, he has won various awards for poetry and fiction and has published several books.
Second Prize: “De locos,” a reimagining of “Alice in Wonderland,” written in the Victorian prose of Lewis Carroll. It is the original work of the Catalan storyteller M. Carme Marí Vila (Barcelona, 1969).
Third Prize: “Con el escalpelo” (With the Scalpel), by Jesús Jiménez Reinaldo (Tudela, Navarra, 1962), a crime thriller told with unsettling precision.
Cardenal Mendoza Non Plus Ultra Award, for the micro-story that best enhances the image of Jerez brandy: “Qué va a ser,” by Sergio Rozalén Gil (Valencia, 1972), a resident of the United Kingdom. His story recreates a philosophical conversation between a Jerez brandy drinker and a bartender.
The jury, chaired by Mauricio Gil Cano, was composed of poets Josefa Parra Ramos, director of the Caballero Bonald Foundation, and Ana Sofía Pérez-Bustamante Mourier, PhD in literature, researcher, and critic; as well as storyteller, professor, and critic José López Romero; and Francisco Javier Requejo Bohórquez, CEO of Sánchez Romate Hnos. S.A.
This year, the Cardenal Mendoza Contest received 1,836 micro-stories from twenty-eight countries. The jury’s decision and the winning micro-stories can be read on the website https://www.cardenalmendoza.com/es/blog. The Cardenal Mendoza Contest has established itself as a benchmark in Spanish-language very short fiction with its unique pairing of microfiction and sherry brandy.
