Helen Oyeyemi and Mathias Énard will write about the Prado Museum

▲ Helen Oyeyemi has published 11 novels and has been translated into 14 languages, while Mathias Énard has become one of the leading experts on Arabic and Persian cultures. Photo courtesy of the Prado Museum.

Armando G. Tejeda

Correspondent

La Jornada Newspaper, Wednesday, May 7, 2025, p. 5

Madrid. As has become a tradition at the Prado Museum, since at least 2023, each year they invite two writers from diverse literary traditions to explore the gallery's galleries, lose themselves among its works of art, and create a narrative based on the experience. This year, the chosen ones are Nigerian Helen Oyeyemi and Frenchman Mathias Énard, who will also give a lecture about their experience.

The Escribir el Prado program was born a couple of years ago, with the support of the Spanish-language magazine Granta and funding from the Loewe Foundation, which allowed it to begin its journey with two renowned writers: the South African and Nobel Prize winner for literature John M. Coetzee and the Mexican Chloe Aridjis, who have also published their two stories, in two very carefully curated editions entitled: El vigilante de sala (Coetzee) and El nivel del aire (Aridjis).

The first to visit the museum will be Nigerian Oyeyemi, who will begin her experience this spring. Like French artist Énard in the fall, they will establish their residence in Madrid, making the Museum their center of activity and contemplation. Based on this creative process, they will write a text related to the Museum, exploring the expressive links between fiction and the visual arts. This text will later be published in the Museum's collection.

Oyeyemi was born in Nigeria in 1984, but became a naturalized British citizen and currently lives in Prague. The originality and depth of her work have cemented her reputation as a unique voice in contemporary literature, and she has been translated into 14 languages. Since her debut, Oyeyemi has excelled at her innovative and experimental narrative style. She has written 11 novels, including Gingerbread (2019), Parasol Against the Axe (2024), and, most recently, A New New Me .

Meanwhile, Frenchman Énard, born in 1972, has become one of the foremost experts on Arab and Persian cultures, having spent long periods in the Near East. He is a member of the editorial board of the magazine Inculte in Paris and in 2005 was elected writer-in-residence at the prestigious Villa Médicis in Rome. He has taught Arabic at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is the author of the novels The Perfection of Shooting (2004), Going Up the Orinoco (2006), The Manual of the Perfect Terrorist (2007), Zone (2008), Alcohol and Nostalgia (2012), and The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers ' Guild (2020), among others. He has been awarded several prizes, including the Prix de la Francophonie 2004, the Prix Décembre, the Prix du Livre Inter, the Prix Goncourt des Students in 2010 and the Prix Goncourt 2015 for Brùjula .