Repeating Islands

Cuban writer Leonardo Padura, famous for his detective stories featuring his cynical detective Mario Conde, has won the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout Monde awarded last night in Cayenne, Guyane.

For twenty-one years, the award—Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe —created through the initiative of the Carbet journal (1990) and presided by Edouard Glissant, was organized in Guadeloupe, French Guiana and Martinique (with one edition in Paris in 2008). Since 2007 the contest has been organized by the Institut du Tout Monde, an itinerant association (with meetings held in the Caribbean, the Americas, Africa, and Europe). In 2009, the award was named Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde.

With no press releases or news reports available yet, we are indebted to our dear friend Thomas Spear of Île en île (http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/ile.en.ile/) for our information.

Padura was nominated for his 2009 novel El hombre que amaba a los perros (The Man Who Loved Dogs), translated into French in 2011 as L’Homme qui aimait les chiens. It deals with the murder of Leon Trotsky and the man who assassinated him, Ramón Mercader. At almost 600 pages in length it is his most accomplished work and the result of more than five years of meticulous historical research.

We ill update our report as details emerge. Padura joins fellow writers like Patrick Chamoiseau, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Edwidge Danticat, Franketienne, René Depestre, Jamaica Kincaid, Raphaël Confiant, and others as the recipient of the prestigious prize.