Peruvian author Santiago Roncagliolo won the Independent Fiction Prize

Peruvian author Santiago Roncagliolo has won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for his third novel, Red April. The writer beat competition from the likes of Nobel Prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk to become the youngest person to win the prize at 36. He shares his £10,000 award with the translator of his novel, American Edith Grossman. The prize is given to a living author whose book has been translated into English and published in the UK.
Roncagliolo’s political thriller, translated from Spanish, tells of a Peruvian prosecutor in charge of a murder investigation. Judge and literary editor at the Independent Boyd Tonkin described Red April as “a novel that will grip, excite, disturb and challenge all its readers”. Roncagliolo said: “The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize closes a wonderful ‘British season’ for me and my book. I am very happy to have won, but I was already honoured to be on the longlist, to be considered in the same league as such amazing writers.”
Santiago Rafael Roncagliolo Lohmann (1975) is a Peruvian writer, scriptwriter, translator and journalist. His writing career started with a few children’s books and a short play called “Your friends would never harm you”. He is also a soap opera scriptwriter, an investigative journalist, a political analyst and a contributor for El Pais and other various Latin American newspapers. In 2006 his novel Abril Rojo (“Red April”) won the Premio Alfaguara. The novel’s plot explores the vicissitudes of a diligent district attorney. It borrows heavily from Alan Moore’s “From Hell”.