Helen Oyeyemi and Mathias Énard named writers-in-residence for third 'Writing the Prado'

Helen Oyeyemi and Mathias Énard have been named writers-in-residence for the third edition of "Writing the Prado", a joint initiative between the Prado Museum in Madrid and the Loewe Foundation in collaboration with Granta en español. Writing the Prado is a residency programme that "invites internationally-renowned writers to the Prado with the aim of inspiring literary creation". Oyeyemi will be in resident writer in the summer, followed by Énard in the autumn.

British novelist Oyeyemi is known for her novels and short stories, and is the author of What Is Yours Is Not Yours (Picador, 2016), Boy, Snow, Bird (Pan Macmillan, 2013) and Peaces (Faber, 2021). She is the recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award and the PEN Open Book Award, among others. 

French writer Énard was awarded the Goncourt Prize for his novel Compass (2015). He is also the author of La Perfection du tir (2003), Zone (2014), Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants (2018), and The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild (2024).

The Writing the Prado collection began in 2024 and is published by the museum with Valerie Miles as literary editor. It presents works of fiction inspired by the museum, written by authors after completing their residencies.

Oyeyemi and Énard will relocate to Madrid, working from the Prado, and at the end of the residency they will both produce a literary reflection exploring the links between fiction and the visual arts, to be published as part of the museum’s collection. During their residencies, both authors will also take part in a series of public talks.