Irene Solà wins 2025 Dutch European Literature Prize

Catalan writer Irene Solà has won the 2025 European Literature Prize of the Netherlands.

The award was given for her third novel, I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness.

Solà becomes the first Catalan author to receive this prestigious prize, which carries an award of €10,000.

The prize also recognizes the work of the translator, Adri Boon, who receives the same amount as the author.

The book, originally published in Catalan in 2023, was translated into Dutch Ik gaf je ogen en je keek in de duisternis in 2024.

It has also been translated into English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Hungarian, Spanish, Galician, and Basque.

Praised widely by critics, the novel tells the story of the women who have lived and died in Mas Clavell, a remote farmhouse in the Guilleries, a rugged mountain range in Catalonia.

Solà’s second and most acclaimed novel, When I Sing, Mountains Dance, won the European Union Prize for Literature and was nominated for Book of the Year by The Guardian.