Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez takes Alfaguara prize

This year's Alfaguara Award, a literary prize created in 1965, has gone to the Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez for a novel the jury described as "a dark assessment of a period of terror and violence." El ruido de las cosas al caer (or, The noise of falling things) is set in Bogotá and covers a period in Colombian history ruled by the overwhelming presence of Pablo Escobar, the fearsome drug king who became one of the world's richest men during a lifetime of criminal activity.

"An award like this allows me to stand firm in my notion of what literature is," said Vásquez, 37, who has been living in Barcelona since 1999. The writer, who also studied in Paris, has been widely considered one of the best authors of his generation since publishing The Informers in 2004 and The Secret History of Costaguana in 2007. Vásquez also penned a brilliant compilation of essays on literature, El arte de la distorsión (or, The art of distortion), and several of his works have been translated into English.

Vásquez's work has been praised by the likes of Mario Vargas Llosa (winner of the latest Nobel Prize in literature) and other major figures of Spanish-language letters such as Juan Marsé, Javier Cercas and Enrique Vila-Matas.

The award, which is handed out by the publisher Alfaguara (a unit of PRISA, the group that publishes EL PAÍS), will bring Vásquez $175,000 (around 125,000 euros) in prize money.

The jury, presided by the Basque novelist Bernardo Atxaga, noted in its statement that Vásquez describes Bogotá "as a literary territory filled with significance."

Exotic escape

The main character is Antonio Yammara, whose adventures include dealing with "the exotic escape and subsequent capture of a hippopotamus, the last remaining vestige of the impossible zoo that Pablo Escobar used to display his power." There is another character named Ricardo Laverde, a former aviator who has spent 20 years in jail and, in a way, represents the generation of the main character's parents.

Past winners of the Alfaguara Prize for best novel include Son de Mar by Manuel Vicent (later made into a movie by Spanish director Bigas Luna), Delirium by Laura Restrepo, Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo, Travelers Century by Andrés Neuman and The Art of Resurrection by Hernán Rivera Letelier.