Philosopher Francesc Torralba has won the 2026 Josep Pla Award with the essay 'Anatomy of Hope', opening the door to philosophy in a prize traditionally focused on narrative and memoirs. This recognition follows the 2025 edition's inclusion of neuroscience, reflecting global trends toward scientific and humanistic popularization.
The Josep Pla Award, created in 1968, aims to honor the Catalan prose writer with works of narrative in Catalan without genre limitations, including novels, short stories, memoirs, biographies, or diaries. Historically, it has awarded mostly fiction novels, followed by memoirs and diaries, with the first non-fiction title in 1970 to Teresa Pàmies for Testament a Praga. Other winners in this field include Alexandre Cirici, Jaume Miravitlles, and more recently, Rafel Nadal.
Although the rules allow short stories, only one collection has won: Isabel Olesti's Dibuix de dona amb ocells blancs in 1995, amid controversy when jury member Joan Perucho resigned, accusing the publisher of altering the verdict.
The 2025 edition innovated with David Bueno's L’art de ser humans, incorporating neuroscience and aligning with authors like Bill Bryson or Yuval Noah Harari, who have popularized scientific-humanistic outreach. Now, in 2026, Francesc Torralba receives the award for Anatomy of Hope, a philosophical essay exploring hope in times of uncertainty.
This prize is often seen as a thermometer of Catalan literature, despite variables like submitted originals or editorial interests. Currently, it reflects a society immersed in a 'labyrinth of uncertainty' similar to that diagnosed by postmoderns like Lyotard in the 1970s. As the article notes, there is a growing need for emotional well-being tools, like those proposed by previous winner Gaspar Hernàndez, and an interest in bibliotherapy, where hope and fiction are the last to be lost.
