The winners of the Dominican Republic’s Annual Literature Awards 2018 at the Pedro Henríquez Ureña National Library in Santo Domingo were fewer than expected this year.

Síndrome del Iphone by Luis R. Santos took the award in in the Aurora Tavarez Belliard Children and Youth Literature category.
In the category of Poetry Salomé Ureña de Henríquez the award went to Fray Jit Manuel Castillo de la Cruz for En la voz del silencio, while Médar Serrata took the prize in the Pedro Henríquez Ureña Essay category for La poética del trujillismo.
For the theatre category there were no submissions this year, so at least no disappointed authors.
But remarkably, for both the Story and the Novels categories the jury had to announce sadly that there would be no prize awarded this year as

the works did not obtain sufficient merits to deserve the distinction.

This despite 17 novels and 7 stories being put forward.
Find out more about the winning submissions over at Metro RD (in Spanish).