The Cuban writers Margarita Mateo, Gina Picart and Alberto Garrandes won the 2008 Alejo Carpentier award, the most important competition for unpublished texts in Cuba. Its results are usually published before the 26 of December, the birth date of the author of El siglo de las luces (Century of Lights).

Mateo won the novel award with her work Desde los blancos manicomios (From the white mental hospitals), while Picart won in the story genre with Oil on canvas. Alberto Agrandes won in the essay competition with his work Discursos narrativos, historia e imaginación de la narrativa cubana de los años 60 (Narrative speeches, history and imagination in the Cuban narrative of the 60's).

The jury of this competition organized by the Cuban Book Institute and the Letras Cubanas Publishing House was made by Enrique Cirules, Jorge Ángel Hernández Pérez and Rogelio Rodríguez Coronel in novel, María Elena Llana, Emmanuel Tornés and Carlos Esquivel in stories and Juana García Abás, Rafael Acosta de Arriba and Jorge Fornet in essays.

(Granma.cu)