Labels, like guns, are the devil's work. However, in the chaotic cultural magma in which we live they help to make visible some talented voices that the best-selling lists don't give them a chance to thrive. And who knows if those same voices will one day end up being best-sellers; if talent will prosper over "tweet-mania."

In a deliberate bid to highlight the astonishing literary quality of young writers in Spanish, the prestigious magazine Granta once again opened nominations for promising literary talents under the age of 35. From among 200 authors submitted, and after deliberation by a jury made up of some leading figures such as the editor, translator and writer Aurelio Major, translator and writer Aurelio Major, the Salvadoran journalist and author Horacio Castellanos Molla, the literary critic Gaby Wood, the Spanish writer Rodrigo Fresán and the Mexican-American novelist Chloe Aridjis, the 25 most promising Granta authors have now been announced.

The list, which was presented last Wednesday at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid, is headed by Spain, Mexico, Argentina and Cuba, and the selection also includes authors from Equatorial Guinea, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

The centenary literary magazine's first list was published in 2010 and this second one also compiles unpublished texts by authors in its English and Spanish editions. 

According to Granta's president, Swedish philanthropist Sigrid Rausing, the list is the result of an effort to "find the best storytellers of their generation and present them to the world".

The list includes the Ecuadorian writer Mónica Ojeda, whom AL DÍA interviewed for her second novel, Jawbone; the Spaniards David Aliaga, Andrea Abreu and Alejandro Morellón, and the Mexican Mateo García Elizondo, grandson of García Márquez and who has published Una Cita con la Lady (Ed. Anagrama) in Spain, a novel that mysteriously won the Ciutat de Barcelona Prize in 2019.

Granta's Spanish editor and director, Valerie Miles, reported that pandemic diaries were banned from the call for entries, although she acknowledged the inevitability of the trauma of COVID-19 seeping into the works. 

Among the themes and shared influences, noted by BBC, references to Philip K. Dicj, Roberto Bolaño and Sylvia Plath are a generational constant. 

Andrea Abreu (Spain)

José Adiak Montoya (Nicaragua)

David Aliaga (Spain)

Carlos Manuel Álvarez (Cuba)

José Ardila (Colombia)

Gonzalo Baz (Uruguay)

Miluska Benavides (Peru)

Martín Felipe Castagnet (Argentina)

Andrea Chapela (Mexico)

Camila Fabbri (Argentina)

Paulina Flores (Chile)

Carlos Fonseca (Costa Rica)

Mateo García Elizondo (Mexico)

Aura García-Junco (Mexico)

Munir Hachemi (Spain)

Dainerys Machado Vento (Cuba)

Estanislao Medina Huesca (Equatorial Guinea)

Cristina Morales (Spain)

Alejandro Morellón (Spain)

Michel Nieva (Argentina)

Mónica Ojeda (Ecuador)

Eudris Planche Savón (Cuba)

Irene Reyes-Noguerol (Spain)

Aniela Rodríguez (Mexico)

Diego Zúñiga (Chile)