By Rober Díaz.
The controversial writer Dahlia de la Cerda (Aguascalientes, 1982) has been selected, alongside twelve other writers, as a finalist for the prestigious 2025 International Booker Prize, which has been awarded since 2005 and was established by the Man Group, a British alternative investment company that awards 50,000 euros, which is shared between the translator and the author of the work.
The award has been won by Nobel laureates Alice Munro, Olga Tokarczuk, and Han Kang, as well as renowned authors such as Philip Roth, Ismail Kadare, and László Krasznahorkai.
This year’s list, in addition to including de la Cerda, features the celebrated Romanian writer Mircea Cărtărescu, making the competition tough but not impossible for her. It’s also worth noting that the controversial author has earned her reputation thanks to her battles on social media, such as when she debated Chilean sociologist Alberto Mayol in 2024 over the participation of singer Peso Pluma in the Viña del Mar festival, whose tentative presentation – the singer canceled his participation – was viewed by the academic world as an apology for narco-culture. In response, the writer said: “Let’s listen to the youth who sing about the narco.”
Her most recent controversy involved writer Julián Herbert (Acapulco, 1971), who, in his latest book Overol, used her — to her detriment — as an example of literary criticism, when she claimed that she was going through a difficult time that the Acapulco writer had “opportunistically” used.
As we can see, disputes have been part of the literary career of the writer, who is a committed activist and advocate for women’s rights. After losing her cousin to a femicide, she decided to create the pro-choice collective, Morras Help Morras.
She has three works: Perras de Reserva (2019), Desde los Zulos (2023), and Medea me cantó un corrido (2024). The International Booker Prize winner will be announced on May 20, with the award ceremony taking place at the Tate Modern in London. Regarding the criticism and controversies on social media, she has written: “It helps sell the book. The thing is, from one controversy to the next, the book keeps getting reprinted…”