Isabel Allende Wins €1 Million Planeta Prize for Dictatorship Sequel

Chilean novelist Isabel Allende won Spain’s 2026 Planeta Prize, worth €1 million, for The Hour Before Dawn, a sequel to her 1982 novel The House of the Spirits. The new book follows Alba, granddaughter of the original novel’s central family, after imprisonment and torture under Chile’s dictatorship, as she returns home pregnant and confronts the era’s violence. Allende said the story feels timely amid threats to democracy and authoritarianism, and the win comes as she moves from longtime publisher Penguin Random House to Planeta, which sponsors the award. Screenwriter Sergio Hernández was named runner-up, receiving €200,000. While the prize is among the Spanish-speaking world’s most prominent commercial literary awards, critics have questioned its selection process and its history of honoring established or commercially prominent figures.