José Antonio Bonilla receives the 2023 BMB International Crime Novel Award for "La dama de niebla"
Sabadell-born José Antonio Bonilla was awarded the Black Mountain Bossòst Prize 2023 for his book La dama de niebla, a novel defined as a frenetic police investigation where nothing is what it seems.
On Sunday 30 April, the award ceremony of the 5th International BMB Novel Prize 2023 took place in Bossòst (Vall d'Aran), where the jury awarded the Black Mountain Bossòst Noir Novel Prize to José Antonio Bonilla for his book La dama de niebla [The Lady in the Mist]. The winning novel, already published, was chosen among 50 unpublished novels submitted. Among the finalists were: Barro en las suelas, Cartucho, La muerte tiene favoritos, Las sombras del Pirineo and Sangre de Policía.
Bonilla, who holds a degree in Biology and Biochemistry from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, is a member of the Spanish Association of Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror (AEFCFT-Pórtico) and the PAE (Plataforma de Adictos a la Escritura). Among his award-winning works are: La inconquistable (2014), finalist of the 21st Domingo Santos Science Fiction Award, Ciudad espejo (2018), winner of the VI Premio de Novela de Terror Ciudad de Utrera, and El aliento de Brahma (2019), finalist of the XII Premio de Novela Corta Encina de Plata.
The jury of the BMB International Noir Novel Prize, convened by the City Council of Bossòst, the BMB Festival and the writers' association Lee o Muere, met on 15 March 2023 to make a decision. Marisa Carbajo, Gustavo Abrevaya, Mariano Sánchez and Miguel Izu, after reading the finalists' works without knowing their authorship, unanimously decided that La dama de niebla would be the winner. The jury noted that the decision was based on the narrative technique of the text, the choral account of a classic Mossos d'Esquadra police investigation, the intrigue and the complex characters, among other distinctive features of the work.