The jury of the Jose Luis Sampedro Prize 2026 has unanimously awarded the award to Juan José Millás. He will receive the prize within the Getafe Negro festival, which this year will run from October 14 to 25, and his name will thus join a list that includes, in addition to Sampedro himself, prominent writers such as Antonio Muñoz Molina, Rosa Regás, Adela Cortina, Carlos García Gual, Clara Janés, Eduardo Mendoza, Rosa Montero, Alicia Giménez Bartlett, Emilio Lledó, Andrés Sorel, Joaquín Leguina, Francisco González Ledesma, Don Winslow and Carme Riera.
The jury has been chaired by Sara Hernández, mayor of Getafe, and Luis José Domínguez Iglesias, Councillor of Culture and Coexistence of Getafe, and composed of representatives from the Ministry of Culture of Spain, Instituto Cervantes, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Dirección General de Patrimonio Cultural de la Comunidad de Madrid and Ámbito Cultural de El Corte Inglés, together with Lorenzo Silva, honorary curator, and Maica Rivera, director of the Festival.
The Jose Luis Sampedro prize was established by Getafe Negro in 2009, and Sampedro himself was its first recipient, a tribute paid during the Festival’s third edition. Since then it has been awarded to authors who, like him, have demonstrated throughout their career, in any literary genre, a high level of excellence, innovation and outstanding originality, and also humanist values such as commitment to their time, contribution to the promotion of culture, solidarity among people, the formation of a critical consciousness and the defense of freedoms and fundamental rights.
The mayor of Getafe, Sara Hernández, has stressed that “having a figure like Juan José Millás elevates this award that transcends the festival itself. Getafe is a city that is ambitious and always seeks the best, and Millás’ work, with its critical gaze, its close proximity to people and its undeniable humanism, perfectly embodies the spirit of José Luis Sampedro. Through words, Millás teaches us to be more critical of our surroundings, and for that it is a pride to honor him at an event like Getafe Negro, which continues to shape us as a society every day.”
JUAN JOSÉ MILLÁS
Juan José Millás was born in Valencia in 1946, though he has spent most of his life in Madrid, a city that has served as the backdrop to much of his literary universe.
As a writer and journalist of reference, he burst onto the literary scene in the seventies with Cerbero son las sombras (Sésamo Prize, 1975). Since then, he has consolidated a unique voice in which strangeness, black humor and the exploration of identity transform everyday reality into a surprising territory. Among his prolific narrative works stand out such titles as La soledad era esto (Nadal Prize 1990), El orden alfabético (1998) and El mundo (Planeta Prize and National Prize for Narrative 2007), one of his most acclaimed novels with autobiographical tones.
As a journalist, Millás has forged a brilliant career. He is the creator of the “articuento”, a format that sits between an opinion column and a short story, which he regularly publishes in the newspaper EL PAÍS. His work in the media, which includes a close association with Cadena SER, has earned him prestigious awards such as the Mariano de Cavia Award and the National Prize for Cultural Journalism.
In his most recent endeavor, he has captivated thousands of readers by merging literature and science in a successful trilogy co-authored with paleontologist Juan Luis Arsuaga (The Life Told by a Sapiens to a Neanderthal), demonstrating his inexhaustible curiosity about the human condition and philosophical outreach.