Spain-based airport operator Aena has introduced the Premio Aena de Narrativa Hispanoamericana, an annual award for the best narrative fiction work published in Spanish. The prize offers €1 million to the winner and recognizes books from 2025. Aena plans to buy thousands of copies of shortlisted titles for distribution to employees and institutions.
The Premio Aena de Narrativa Hispanoamericana targets the best published work of narrative fiction in Spanish or translated into Spanish from one of Spain’s co-official languages. Aena, the world’s largest airport operator and 51% owned by the Spanish government, announced the launch as part of efforts to support literature. According to the company, the winner receives €1 million ($1.16 million), while each of the five finalists gets €30,000 ($35,000).
A panel of ten cultural journalists from Spain and Latin America will select the shortlist from books published in 2025. The winner will be revealed at a gala in Barcelona on April 8. In addition to the financial awards, Aena intends to purchase thousands of copies of the shortlisted titles. These will be distributed to Aena employees, as well as to schools, libraries, and cultural centers, potentially boosting readership for the finalists.
This prize positions itself as the largest literary award globally for a single published novel, exceeding the Booker Prize’s £50,000 and the Carol Shields Prize’s $150,000. Only the Nobel Prize in Literature matches its scale financially, though that award honors an author’s overall career rather than one title. The initiative highlights growing support from Spanish government-linked entities for cultural projects in recent times.
