Planeta Prize 2026: Allende wins amid growing rigging suspicions

Planeta Prize: one million euros and 1,070 novels that, according to users, nobody has read

The Planeta Prize has just announced the winners of its 75th edition. The winner takes home one million euros. And according to the official story, a jury has read and evaluated the 1,070 novels submitted. On the forum, several users calculate that, if the submission window lasted a full year, each jury member would have to read almost three novels a day, every single day, without a break. The math doesn't add up. And when the math doesn't add up, they argue, someone is lying or the prize doesn't work the way it claims to.

The suspicion is nothing new. It is structural, according to participants. A literary contest with a six-zero purse is not a merit competition: it is a publishing marketing operation. The publisher doesn't gamble a million on an unknown. It signs a deal with an established author or a celebrity who guarantees minimum sales. The rest is choreography.

How many novels can a jury read in a year?

The figure of 1,070 submitted manuscripts is the heart of the matter. A professional reader manages, at best, 200 to 300 pages a day if it's their full-time job. An average novel is 300. That's one novel a day, at most, under optimal conditions. Multiply by the number of jury members and the real time they have available. The result doesn't come anywhere near 1,070 complete readings.

Some argue the jury doesn't read everything, but filters by the pile and discards based on synopses. That's plausible. It's also an admission: the prize isn't awarded by reading the works, it's awarded by discarding most of them unread. And if the filter is the synopsis, the real criterion is marketability, not literary quality.

The most cynical answer —and probably the most honest one, according to some— is that the winner was decided before the deadline closed. The contest is the wrapping. The novel is written to order. The prize is handed out. And everyone's happy.

The 2026 winner: Isabel Allende and the sequel to 'The House of the Spirits'

The 75th Planeta Prize has gone to Isabel Allende with La hora antes del alba, a sequel set in the universe of The House of the Spirits. The novel picks up the story of Alba, Clara's granddaughter, who will live through and suffer the Chilean dictatorship. One million euros. And an author who needs no introduction, who sells by herself, and whose name guarantees front pages, interviews and sales across Latin America.

The choice fits the rigging thesis, according to forum users: the prize doesn't discover talent, it buys it ready-made. Allende is a publishing brand. The prize is a launch campaign disguised as a literary contest. And the sequel to a celebrated work is the perfect product: guaranteed audience, critics won over in advance, and a perfect excuse to reissue it.

Allende herself declared upon receiving the award that "people have short memories and nowadays there is a tendency to idealize strongmen." A line that, in the context of a novel about the Chilean dictatorship, works as political positioning and as a headline. The prize, beyond selling books, manufactures narrative.

The precedent nobody forgets: three authors with a woman's name

The archives are unforgiving. A few years ago, the Planeta Prize went to Carmen Mola, a pen name behind which three male screenwriters were hiding. The episode left an open wound, according to users: the feeling that the prize is awarded on image criteria, not literary ones. If a female pen name sells more, it's used. If the established author sells more, she's signed. Meanwhile, the jury reads 1,070 novels.

Since the pandemic, the winners' statistics are striking, according to one user: six women and one man. And the man, Juan del Val, is part of the Planeta group itself and wrote, according to critics, a women's novel for women. The gender diversity in the roll of honour is, to put it mildly, suspiciously aligned with market trends, according to that view.

This isn't about whether women can win prizes. It's about the fact that the prize seems designed so that whoever is supposed to win does win, according to critics. And that, in a contest presented as meritocratic, is a credibility problem.

Why does nobody care about the Planeta Prize anymore?

The loss of prestige is a measurable fact in conversations, not in sales. The prize sells. It sells a lot. But its literary prestige has gone down the drain, according to forum users. The general perception is that it is a rigged prize, awarded on ideological and commercial grounds, and that the winning novels are disposable products.

The paradox is that the prize remains profitable. One million euros in prize money is pocket change compared to what an Allende novel with the Planeta Prize seal rakes in. The publisher doesn't lose money: it invests. And the investment pays off handsomely. The prize isn't an expense, it's an advertising asset.

Meanwhile, the Spanish publishing world rests on a paradox, according to users: traditional publishers publish celebrities and established names, while emerging writers turn to self-publishing. Amazon KDP, Círculo Rojo, Caligrama and the like publish thousands of books a year. In that ecosystem, the Planeta Prize is the tip of the iceberg of a system that rewards those who already sell.

AI and the future of rigging: who reads the 1,070 novels?

The arrival of artificial intelligence has added a layer of surrealism to the matter, according to forum users. If it was already hard to believe a jury read 1,070 novels, now the suspicion is different: that an AI reads them. A language model can analyse 1,070 manuscripts in minutes, apply criteria of preferred themes —inclusion, gender, political correctness— and propose a winner. The human jury would only have to sign.

There is no proof this is happening. But the hypothesis circulates because it is plausible, according to users. And because the prize, in its official version, demands a human effort nobody believes in. If AI can do the dirty work, why wouldn't it?

The question isn't whether the Planeta Prize is rigged. The question is whether anyone still believes it isn't. And if nobody believes it, why does the jury still exist?