Graduate student Xita Rubert wins Herralde Novel Prize for 'Los hechos de Key Biscayne'

Xita Rubert, a sixth-year doctoral candidate in comparative literature, has been named a co-winner of the 2024 Herralde Novel Prize for her second novel, "Los hechos de Key Biscayne."

Xita Rubert

Photo courtesy of Johanna Marghella (Anagrama)

The Herralde Novel Prize, one of Spain's most prestigious literary awards, is given annually by the Anagrama publishing house. Rubert accepted the award at a ceremony on Nov. 4 in Barcelona.

Rubert described "Los hechos de Key Biscayne" as a story “about natural and personal disasters." The novel centers on a Spanish philosophy professor, newly divorced, who moves with his children from Boston to a gated community in Key Biscayne, Florida, as the 2010 earthquake hits Haiti. "One of the things that I was interested in portraying is, how do more privileged or 'super safe' communities react to these kinds of disasters?"

Rubert, who is one of the youngest recipients ever of the prize, said receiving it feels "huge, because it's been awarded to writers like Roberto Bolaño, Enrique Vila-Matas and Mariana Enríquez." Her book will be published on Nov. 27.

Rubert wrote "Los hechos de Key Biscayne" and her first novel, "Mis días con los Kopp," at Princeton while working on her dissertation about three 20th-century Latin American writers: the Brazilian novelist and short-story writer Clarice Lispector, the Argentinian poet and short-story writer Silvina Ocampo, and the British-Mexican artist and writer Leonora Carrington. Rubert is a graduate fellow in the Program in Latin American Studies, which is funding her final year of studies.

"At Princeton, I am surrounded by a fantastic community of mentors and colleagues in comparative literature and Latin American studies, including my adviser, Eduardo Cadava [the Philip Mayhew Professor of English]. Some of them have read bits and pieces of my novels and given me feedback,” she said. “That's what feeds my work. I feel like this award is shared between all these people who have been supporting me."

Rubert credits the teaching opportunities she has had at the University with shaping her aspiration to both teach and write fiction. She co-taught the undergraduate course "The Art and Practice of Impersonality" with Maria DiBattista, the Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English and professor of comparative literature, and served as a teaching assistant for the undergraduate course "Literature and Medicine," taught by Elena Fratto, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures.