Matanzas Writer Wins the 2026 Aldabón Prize
«It is an original and suggestive book, a hybridization of Cuban realism with speculative science fiction, with agile prose, a mixture of humor and tenderness in a set of stories woven with poetic images and well-executed approaches, with characters who reappear in some of the stories and become endearing in their closeness.»
This was the assessment of the jury composed of Maylan Álvarez, Raúl Piad, and Náthaly Hernández Chávez when awarding the 2026 Aldabón Prize, in the Science Fiction/Fantasy category, to Crononafta y otros cuentos de camioneros muy espaciales (Crononaut and Other Stories of Very Spatial Truckers), by the young Matanzas writer Marien Cabrera Sánchez.
This volume marks a new writing style for its author who, after experimenting with texts responding to so-called hard science fiction, heads down other paths to find stories about the complexity and multiplicity of other worlds.
«For me it was a pleasant surprise to receive that prize in 2026 when it marks a change in my style from the writing point of view, which is no longer a science fiction, within the terms, hard, but rather more speculative, working on the part of Cuban realism but carried to a key a little more toward science fiction.»
«The book is about truckers, due to my current job and how I navigate in it, especially when trips and changes develop. I wanted to take this toward a different idea from what we generally see within Cuban science fiction.»
As an interesting element, Cabrera Sánchez makes imaginary space-time coordinates, different from ours, coincide with the deep-rooted Cuban popular imaginary in which legends are part of national identity.
«Basically it works or creates styles about how these truckers develop their trips, give specific solutions to situations that are not normal, and also how these trips can influence or not within the plot of the story, interlocking each tale.
«The book has, let’s say, two parts or two groups of stories: some focused on a trucker named Manolo and others on another trucker named Jorge. The first part is focused more toward these changes, especially of fuel, and the second part toward Afro-Cuban legends that are worked specifically within science fiction and Afro-Cuban fantasy.»
Also finalists were Otros tiempos, a versatile collection, well constructed technically, that moves with ease among dystopia, uchronia, cosmic horror, satire, and other subgenres of the fantastic, by writer Alejandro Raymundo Pérez from Camagüey; Rabia de contrastes rojos, for having a unique voice, Caribbean and universal at the same time, by José Luis Betancourt Carbonell from Holguín; and La luna sobre Matanzas, by Matanzas native Alain Gómez Pérez, for his interesting treatment of Matanzas legends at different moments of its history.
The 2026 Aldabón Prize dedicated its days to playwright, critic, and writer Ulises Rodríguez Febles, with presentations of new literary releases, readings, and panels.
