A young author wins the X Edition of the El Barco de Vapor Award
Photo: José Rafael Centeno
Pabsi Livmar wins the award for a fantasy and science fiction story with dystopian elements
(San Juan, February 2, 2017) - The SM Foundation announced that young writer and translator Pabsi Livmar has won the X El Barco de Vapor Children's Literature Award with her short novel for young audiences, El visitante de las estrellas (The Visitor from the Stars), which depicts a future human society that, despite considering itself advanced, is mired in exclusion and oppression.
The manuscript prevailed over 43 original entries submitted to the annual children's literature contest organized by the SM Foundation in Puerto Rico to select a high-caliber literary work that appeals to readers between 6 and 12 years old.
The work was chosen unanimously by a distinguished jury composed of writers Ángel Antonio Ruiz Laboy, current director of the Editorial of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture; Awilda Cáez; José Enrique Muratti; Juan López Bauzá; and representing the SM Foundation, Diana Bernard, editorial director of SM Puerto Rico.
The manuscript, submitted under a hidden identity, won the jury's favor for its thematic relevance that prompts reflection, the successful portrayal of its characters—complex and relatable at once, and of rich significance—and its engaging development for the reading public.
"The author effectively represents the protagonist's internal conflict, a result of the clash between the values of compassion and solidarity he has learned from his father and the expectations of a society that compels him to take up the weapons of rejection and xenophobia, turning into an adversary a being as fragile and condemned by circumstances as himself," the award statement reads.
The El Barco de Vapor Award, which celebrates ten years of calls and ceremonies in Puerto Rico, is granted to the work of greatest literary merit that encourages a love for reading and transmits human, social, and cultural values that contribute to building a more dignified world.
The award includes a single cash prize of twelve thousand dollars and publication in SM's El Barco de Vapor collection.
The award ceremony will take place on April 28, 2017, when the new call for the El Barco de Vapor Award will also be launched.
In Puerto Rico, the award has been previously conferred upon Tina Casanova, Mayra Montero (on two occasions), Isabel Arraiza-Arana, C. J. García, Samuel Silva Gotay, Janette Becerra, José Rabelo, and Ernesto Guerra Frontera.
About the Author
Pabsi Livmar (1986) is a native of Peñuelas and lives in San Juan. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Modern Languages and a Master's degree in Translation, both from the University of Puerto Rico. A doctoral candidate in audiovisual translation at the Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, she translates films, websites, and legal texts. She is also a professor and percussionist. She has worked as a blogger and in writing texts for university students. She has also published short stories for adults. El visitante de las estrellas is her first book.
About the Work
Sep, or 7241 (his official name), is raised by a loving, lucid father with an independent mind. He grows up on a planet that his ancestors took from its original inhabitants, the timlij, whom they eventually forced into an intergalactic exodus. All his life he has heard that the timlij are monstrous and threatening creatures who must be expelled, imprisoned, and eliminated to guarantee human survival. When the timlij return to the planet seeking to survive, war breaks out. Sep's encounter with one of the timlij, who is as small as he is, will lead him to question everything he has learned so far and face the dilemma of disobedience in an attempt to save him.
In this evolved human society of the future, which conceives of itself as advanced and just—and perhaps it is in some respect—the burdens of oppression and exclusion persist; weapons of critical reflection, empathy, compassion, and brave action remain the hope for redemption.
About SM
SM is a cultural and educational project with two fully integrated areas of action: the editorial work of the SM companies, dedicated to the development of educational content and services, religious publications, and children's and young adult literature; and the social work of the SM Foundation, which allocates the profits of the editorial group to improve the quality of education and bring teaching and culture to the most disadvantaged sectors of society. Currently, SM is one of the most prominent actors in the Ibero-American publishing sector, with clear leadership in its fields of action. Its project is strengthened in each of the nine countries where it operates: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.
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