04. Education, information and entertainment in transformation Annual Report 2013 61 the bestselling ebooks. All these titles enjoyed a simultaneous release with the print edition. The year also saw the launch of the newly minted label, Alfaguara Digital, offering more than 100 titles from the best of Hispano-American literature. Multifunction devices are winning over fans of e-readers as readers increasingly demand enriched multimedia content. PRISA Ediciones has released several titles in the El País-Aguilar food collection, such as Objetivo: Cupcake perfecto, developed in formats that allow access to interactive content, full-color images, 3D, video and audio. However, the emergence of digital publishing is threatened by two factors: the high levels of piracy and the high rate of sales tax (VAT of 21 % for digital versus 4 % for print). Spain is the European country where the ratio between legally downloaded books and the number of devices in circulation is lowest. In an effort to address these difficulties, PRISA Ediciones focuses on offering a wide and competitive catalog at attractive prices that discourage illegal downloads without jeopardizing the future of the business. In terms of content, the publishing year was marked by the death of writer Carlos Fuentes. Ever since publishing his first novel Where the Air Is Clear, readers and critics alike agreed they were witnessing a work that would have a lasting legacy on Mexican and world literature. The author of The Years with Laura Diaz and The Death of Artemio Cruz won the Cervantes Prize in 1987 and was renowned as a magnificent intellectual and political analyst. His last works were Personas and Federico en su balcón. The year also saw the deaths of Argentine writers Alicia Steimberg and Hector Tizon, whose career as a writer and activist inspired millions. In 2012 one of the most iconic novels by Mario Vargas Llosa, The Time of the Hero, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a special, definitive edition from the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE). The author also won the first International Carlos Fuentes Award for fiction in Spanish. In literary fiction and essay, Alfaguara offered a rich and varied catalog, which included José Saramago’s Claraboya, The Civilization of Spectacle by Mario Vargas Llosa and Perez-Reverte’s El tango de la guardia vieja. Leopoldo Brizuela won the Alfaguara Prize 2012 with Una misma noche, and Juan Gabriel Vasquez (Alfaguara Prize 2011) won the Roger Caillois prize for El ruido de las cosas al caer. Other highlights included Xavier Velasco’s (Mexico) La edad de la punzada, Erase una vez Arturo Pérez-Reverte and Cayetana Guillén Cuervo at the book launch for El tango de la Guardia Vieja
PRISA Annual Report 2013
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