MADRID.- These publications are the result of the first two writers' residencies organised by the Museo Nacional del Prado with the sponsorship of Fundación Loewe and the collaboration of the magazine Granta in Spanish. Among the aims of the residencies is the creation of a short story inspired by the time the authors spent in the museum.

The stories will be published by the Museo del Prado in a bilingual (Spanish-English) edition and will be available in the museum’s shops, in bookshops and online from “Tienda Prado”.

The Museum Guard, the story by John Coetzee, 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature, is now available. In this work Coetzee’s famous alter ego Elizabeth Costello makes an appearance.

The publication of The Spirit Level, the story by Chloe Aridjis, winner of the 2020 Pen/Faulkner Prize for Fiction, will be coming soon.

During these residencies authors enter into the life of the museum for a period of between three and six weeks. Over this period they expand their knowledge of the collections and the functioning of the museum through contact with its professionals and access to normally restricted spaces such as the restoration studios, laboratories and art storage areas. That experience provides the basis for the creation of an original text which the museum will be publishing in the Writing the Prado collection.

The next stories in the collection will be those by the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature, and the Irish writer John Banville, 2014 Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature, who will participate in the Writing the Prado residency in October 2024.

Additionally, as part of its collaboration with this project the magazine Granta will publish J. M. Coetzee's text in its English version in its summer issue.

The Museum Guard
J. M. COETZEE

Written by J. M. Coetzee as part of the residency for writers program “Writing the Prado”, organized by the Museo Nacional del Prado sponsored by the Fundación Loewe and in collaboration with Granta en español. His residency in the Museum took place from the end of June to mid July 2023.

J. M. Coetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1940. One of the world’s most renowned novelists, he is also a linguist, literary critic and translator. In 2003 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, earning praise from the Swedish Academy for the “analytic brilliance” of his literary work and the fact that his “intellectual honesty erodes all basis of consolation.” His work has also been awarded the prestigious Booker Prize on two occasions.

The author currently resides in Adelaide (Australia) where he is affiliated with its university and has also been a guest professor at Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Stanford universities. In Spain he received the Reino de Redonda Prize (2001) founded by Javier Marías, and the Llibreter Prize (2003), while his latest novel, The Pole, is set in that country. In The Museum Guard, which he wrote as the inaugural resident of the Writing the Prado programme, his famous alter ego Elizabeth Costello makes an appearance.

The Spirit Level
CHLOE ARIDJIS

The Spirit Level by Chloe Aridjis, is the second book of the “Writing the Prado” collection. This story is part of the residency for writers organized by the Museo Nacional del Prado with the sponsorship of the Fundación Loewe and in collaboration with Granta en español. Chloe Aridjis stayed in the museum from the begining of October till the end of November 2023.

Chloe Aridjis is the author of three novels: Book of Clouds, which won the Prix du premier roman étranger in France (2009); Asunder, set in the National Gallery in London; and Sea Monsters, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction (2020).

The author writes for a number of art publications and was guest curator of the Leonora Carrington exhibition at Tate Liverpool (2015). She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014 and the Eccles Center and Hay Festival Writers Award in 2020. Her most recent book is Dialogue with a Somnambulist: Stories, Essays and a Portrait Gallery. Chloe Aridjis lives in London.