Regional Government of Madrid presents awards to winners of first Metrorrelatos Literary Event

The Regional Government of Madrid today handed over the awards to the winner and the 11 finalists corresponding to the first Metrorrelatos [Metro Tales] Literary Event, convened by Metro de Madrid and the School of Writers. The Deputy Regional Councillor for Transport and Infrastructure, Carlos Díaz-Pache, attended the event at Plaza de España station and congratulated all the finalists, particularly Javier Alonso, whose tale Volver a Casa [Returning Home] was selected as the event winner, for which he received an annual travel card valid for all the tariff zones.

Carlos Díaz-Pache highlighted the high level of participation recorded, with close to 5,000 tales presented, along with their quality, taking into account that the participants had to work on several premises, including a length of no more than 100 words, that the tales had to be set with Metro de Madrid as the backdrop and that the first sentence had to begin with Mientras caminaba por el andén [While walking along the platform].

The jury, made up of the faculty of teaching staff at the School of Writers, was in charge of choosing those texts that stood out both for the way they were written and the story they told. The 11 finalists and the winner of this first edition of the event will be enrolled on a short-story course taught by Ginés Cutillas. Their works will also be displayed on posters in several underground stations and include a QR code to listen to them in audio format.

Together with the winning tale Volver a casa by Javier Alonso, the other finalists in the contest were Almudena Ballester, with the work Un domingo; Isabel Wagemann, with A pata pelá; José Pascual Abellán, with Aurora; Irene Rodríguez, with Pensamientos circulares; Sonia García-Fraile, with Glamour en la línea 1; Ana Belén Borrás, with Toda la vida sin ti; Isabel Alonso, with Buscando tus ojos; Sara Lekanda, with En el andén de enfrente; Lidya Descals, with Un progreso; Marcos Colombres, with Agláope and Pablo Pineño, with El poeta del último vagón. All these stories can now be read and listed to at www.metromadrid.es and www.escueladeescritores.com.

METRO AND LITERATURE

The relationship between Metro and literature has always enjoyed very close ties. Not for nothing, as underground trains are places often used by passengers to read. Furthermore, its installations have been the scenario for numerous initiatives to promote reading, such as the campaign Books to the Street, developed by the Publishers’ Association of Madrid, where you have been able to browse fragments of leading works by different authors on trains for more than two decades now.

Within the framework of this campaign, the latest edition of the Literary Map was set up, which primarily seeks to promote culture and publicise leading works. Accordingly, the names of the underground stations were replaced by those of the favourite works of passengers on a new virtual map, voted for last summer, in the eighth contest of Choose your destination. Furthermore, the Madrid underground has its Bibliometros [Metro Libraries] – a system for the free loan of books, located in 12 underground stations.