ALFAGUARA NOVEL PRIZE 2023

Life is a long journey towards farewell, and they faced every part of the path head-on.

A TRAGICOMIC NOVEL ABOUT OUR LONGEVITY AND ITS PARADOXES

«It makes us laugh as much as it moves us deeply. I believe every reader will find their own reflection in this novel.»
Claudia Piñeiro, jury president

«A moving book whose protagonists care for others, are cared for, and defend dignity to the very end.»
From the jury’s report

When Eufrasia Vela begins working as a caregiver for the elderly, she does not suspect that her profession will lead her to an existential crossroads. The close relationship she maintains with Doña Carmen, Doctor Harrison, and The Magnificent Seven ―endearing characters who take over her thoughts and affection― forces her to reconsider her role as mother and sister, the vicissitudes of longevity, the forms of compassion, and the surprising value that guinea pigs, those peculiar little creatures, acquire in her moral framework. Accompanied by a soundtrack where huayno, jazz, ballad, and pop resonate, the story of Cien cuyes simultaneously rescues the imprint of cinema as a counterpoint to the existence of its characters and a source of revelations about the meaning of life and death as it approaches.

«Cien cuyes is a tragicomic novel, set in today’s Lima, that reflects one of the great conflicts of our time: we are increasingly long-lived societies and increasingly hostile to older people. A paradox that Gustavo Rodríguez addresses with

skill and humor. A moving book whose protagonists care for others, are cared for, and defend dignity to the very end.»
From the jury’s report of the XXVI Alfaguara Novel Prize, chaired by Claudia Piñeiro and composed of Javier Rodríguez Marcos, Carolina Orloff, Rafael Arias García, Juan Tallón, and Pilar Reyes

«A tragicomic, moving story, crafted with skill and humor.»
Claudia Piñeiro

«Gustavo Rodríguez manages to squeeze the metaphor of life as a passage towards death. He does so without moralizing or sensationalism. With humor and dignity.»
Karina Sainz Borgo, ABC

«A work where the tragic and the comic blend in the reflection on the passage of time, old age, and its contradictions. With Cien cuyes we can laugh and we can cry, a smile and a tear. [...] A masterful development that allows the voice of his country in world literature to find its place again, leaving behind what seemed to be an eternal adolescence.»
Octavio Gómez Milián, Zona de Obras

«An appealing novel, with excellent development: endearing, moving, intelligent, assertive... and suggestive, but like the fruit of the lemon, it leaves a bittersweet, tragicomic taste, between hope and despair.»
Fidel Molina-Luque, Segre

«One of those voices that surprise precisely because it does not boast of feeding solely on literature. It also believes in the street and its gaze and in itself.»
Alberto Fuguet

«An ode to old age, a song to existence, and a tribute to those women who work, suffer, care, empathize, long for, and despite everything, survive.»
Concha García, La Razón