Mexican writer and journalist Juan Villoro, whose work moves from novels and essays to soccer writing and children’s books, has won the 2026 Carlos Fuentes International Prize for Literary Creation — an honor that he said should propel him toward his next book.
The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and Mexico’s Culture Ministry announced the unanimous decision Wednesday. The prize recognizes writers whose bodies of work, written wholly or substantially in Spanish, have enriched humanity’s literary heritage.
Villoro appeared with Michel Bauer, director of Host City Ciudad de México, before the World Cup got under way earlier this year but after his talk on “The Theater of Goals.” Among his book titles is “God is Round,” which grew out of his passion for soccer. (Moisés Pablo / Cuartoscuro.com)Villoro, who turned 70 on Sept. 24, was cited for “the breadth and scope of his work, which encompasses different genres with mastery and rigor,” according to Gaceta UNAM, the university’s official news publication.
The jury also praised Villoro as “a shaper of new readers” whose thought has had “a transcendent presence in essays and journalism in Latin America.” It said his work promotes a dialogue between the present and tradition “from a humanist perspective full of humor and irony.”
The prize includes a sum in pesos equivalent to US $125,000, a diploma and a reproduction of a sculpture by Vicente Rojo.
Villoro is the 11th recipient and the fourth Mexican to win the prize, after poet Eduardo Lizalde in 2016, writer and critic Margo Glantz in 2022 and writer Elena Poniatowska in 2023.
The prize’s other winners include Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, who received the inaugural award in 2012, and Sergio Ramírez, the novelist, essayist and former vice president of Nicaragua, honored in 2014.
Villoro’s career has spanned fiction, nonfiction, theater, screenwriting, journalism and literature for younger readers. His work also explores the pleasures and demands of reading.
His 2004 novel “El testigo” (“The Witness”) won Spain’s Herralde Prize, while “El libro salvaje” (“The Wild Book”), published in 2008, has sold more than 1 million copies and been translated into numerous languages.
His subjects extend to violence and everyday apprehension in Mexico, such as this English translation of a 2015 newspaper column in which he recounts a drive to Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, that turns into a reflection on mutual fear amid cartel control.
Additional books include “Dios es redondo” (“God is Round”), about soccer, and “Vértigo horizontal: una ciudad llamada México” (“Horizontal Vertigo: A City Called Mexico”), an essayistic portrait of the capital.
Villoro called the prize “a great surprise, a great honor, but also a commitment,” adding that he regarded awards not as a completed achievement “but as an incentive to keep doing it.”
Established in 2012, the year Carlos Fuentes died, the prize honors the Mexican novelist whose best-known works include “La muerte de Artemio Cruz” (“The Death of Artemio Cruz”), “La región más transparente” (“Where the Air Is Clear”) and the Mexico News Daily-recommended “Aura.”
This year’s jury comprised playwright Flavio González Mello, poet Myriam Moscona, writer and editor Mónica Nepote, novelist David Toscana and Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli, the 2025 recipient.
The prize, which became an annual award in 2019, will be presented in November on a date to be announced.
With reports from El Heraldo de México, EFE and Gaceta UNAM
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