Prize: Prince of Asturias Award (for Literature)

       The Prince of Asturias Awards come in a variety of fields -- arts, sports, international coöperation, social sciences -- and, while the prize ceremony for all of the winners is held at one time ("in the second fortnight of October"), they shrewdly spread out the announcements of who will actually be getting them -- sort of like the Nobels, except that instead of a matter of a few days they take their time and make most of the announcements over a period of many weeks. They've already named a few of this year's laureates, and yesterday they announced that John Banville (and his alter ego, Benjamin Black ...) is the winner in the literature category -- selected from:

24 candidatures from Argentina, Cuba, Chile, China, Egypt, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mozambique, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay and Spain

       Regrettably, they don't reveal the names of the other candidates .....
       (It's unclear what happens to the name of the prizes now, since this prince guy -- H.R.H. Felipe, who founded them -- will shortly be installed as the new king of Spain, since his dad just abdicated (and apparently just closing shop on the sad chapter that is monarchy everywhere is not seriously being considered as an option).)

       The €50,000 prize is yet another big international literary prize for the Man Booker-winner Banville -- he picked up the prestigious Austrian State Prize for European Literature last year, and the Franz Kafka Prize in 2011.

       (Several of his works are under review at the complete review, including The Sea.)