Archived from Uxå Nguyåtuy (1964) - Van Wegberg wins Premio Cristóbal with Marina

Notable author Anton Jacobus Van Wegberg has given Whitmount its first winner of the Premio Cristóbal prize for outstanding contribution to fiction publishing with his intimate impression of Marina, the wife of Spanish missionary and conquer of Valdivia, Pedro Gutiérrez de Valdivia. Although the novel can be read as just a biography of Marina, split into two half’s, chronichalling her thoughts immediately after her husband leaves her for the Nuevo Mundo, and her journey across the ocean to be reunited with her husband in Birú, but it also comments on the delicate heart but strong will of women everywhere. Van Wegberg’s loss of both his sisters in the same year have heavily influenced his work, and the book is full of references to Zalamea de la Serena, the town where both he and Marina were born, but both to vastly different backgrounds.