Marta Borraz wins XXII Tusquets Novel Prize with AIDS-themed book Las leopardas

Award decision and jury verdict

Spanish writer and lawyer Marta Borraz received the XXII Tusquets Novel Prize in Barcelona on 17 September 2026 for her manuscript titled Las leopardas. The jury chose her work by majority vote from a field of 1,248 submissions, surpassing entry counts from all previous editions of the annual contest. The literary award includes a cash prize of 18,000 euros along with a bronze statuette created by sculptor Joaquín Camps. Tusquets Editores will release the finished novel in Spanish bookstores on 7 October 2026. Jury president Antonio Orejudo commended the narrative for capturing both the joy of post-Franco youth and the sorrow of illness without sliding into dark cynicism.

This is the chronicle of a beautiful and wild time, and of the women who passed through it as leopards.

Narrative setting and personal inspiration

Set against the backdrop of Spain during the late 1970s and 1980s, the novel follows Clara, a young woman who studies in Zaragoza while remaining rooted in the Aragonese Pyrenees and the arid landscape of the Monegros. Borraz based Clara on her aunt Paloma, who contracted AIDS and passed away when Borraz was 15 years old. The narrative depicts a circle of nonconformist women navigating cultural freedom, cinema, music, and evolving social mores while confronting a fatal diagnosis. During the award presentation in Barcelona, Borraz appeared dressed in red to honor the victims of the epidemic.

I wanted to pay tribute to a generation that fell into oblivion, and I ended up infected with their wild and completely liberated spirit.

Research and the epidemic in Aragon

To reconstruct the social and clinical environment of 1980s Aragon, Borraz conducted extensive investigative interviews with people who experienced the era firsthand. She gathered testimonies from family members, older friends in Zaragoza, cultural journalists, and local musicians active during the period. The author also interviewed the doctor who treated female AIDS patients on the twelfth floor of Zaragoza's Miguel Servet hospital. The book portrays women who were neither heroin users nor homosexuals contracting the virus during Spain's transition, leaning on mutual solidarity and family loyalty to endure social stigma. Borraz noted that she drafts dialogue by recording real conversations overheard in daily routines.

Career background and prize history

Borraz was born in Huesca in 1981, maintains family roots in the Aragonese town of Alquézar, and works in Barcelona as a practicing lawyer and mediator. She published her debut novel, Años de vida, with publisher Xordica in 2024, recounting rural life during the Spanish Civil War. The Tusquets Prize has highlighted lesser-known literary voices since its founding in 2005, with past winners including Fernando Aramburu in 2011, Elisa Ferrer in 2019, Cristina Araújo in 2022, and Francisco Serrano in 2025. This year's judging panel included Serrano, Orejudo, Tusquets editor Juan Cerezo, author Eva Cosculluela, and podcaster Andrea Gumes.