Isabel Allende wins Premio Planeta with 'House of the Spirits' sequel

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Isabel Allende wins Premio Planeta with 'House of the Spirits' sequel.

Isabel Allende has won the 75th Premio Planeta — a bombshell for the Spanish-language literary world. The 84-year-old Chilean author receives one million euros for "La hora antes del alba", the sequel to her worldwide bestseller "The House of the Spirits". The prize was awarded on Tuesday evening in Barcelona in the presence of the Spanish royal couple. According to El Mundo, the victory means the author is leaving publisher Penguin Random House and moving to Grupo Planeta, which sponsors the prize.

What the sequel tells

The new novella picks up directly from the plot of "The House of the Spirits", according to ABC. Readers will recognize young Alba — one of the narrators of the original novel, which used magical realism to illuminate Chile's history and the turmoil of the Pinochet dictatorship. The new work continues this narrative, as El Mundo writes, and further develops the "convulsive Chilean dictatorship".

An earthquake for the publishing industry

The award has "earthquake character" for the Spanish publishing landscape, according to El País. El Mundo describes Allende as Penguin Random House's previous flagship author, the "rival" of Grupo Planeta. El País, by contrast, points out that the author has been associated with Plaza & Janés — an imprint of Penguin Random House — since 1982. With the victory, she now moves under the Planeta umbrella.

Second place, endowed with 200,000 euros, went to screenwriter Sergio Hernández, according to El País. Allende herself joins, according to ABC, an illustrious list of winners that includes Mario Vargas Llosa, Eduardo Mendoza, and Juan Marsé.

Status: October 15, 2026, 11:00 PM. More details to follow.