3 men using a female pseudonym win literary prize angering women's empowerment groups

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Tl;dr: 3 men write a book about a strong woman under a female pseudonym. Euro women's groups recognize the book and love the book because they believe it was written by a woman (YES THEY ASSUMED THEIR GENDER). Country decides to give the book an award, everyone finds out it was always 3 men.

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The work of one woman was, it turned out, the equivalent of the labors of three men.

That was at least the case for Spain’s top writer of crime thrillers, a professor and mother who wrote under the pseudonym Carmen Mola, supposedly to maintain her anonymity.

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But on Friday night, at a ceremony to award the 1 million euro (about $1,160,000) Planeta literary prize to Mola for her historical thriller “The Beast,” three men ascended the podium and claimed the award instead.

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Mola’s gripping, often-gory novels starring strong female protagonists have been likened to the work of Elena Ferrante, a pseudonym for a widely popular Italian writer.

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Last year, a branch of Spain’s Women’s Institute listed Mola’s “The Girl,” a part of the trilogy, as one of the must-read books and films by women that “help us understand the reality and the experiences of women.”

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Except the writers spinning these tales were really Jorge Díaz, Agustín Martínez and Antonio Mercero — established Spanish television scriptwriters in their 40s and 50s.

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The trio have said they chose the name by chance and for fun — without paying any particular thought to the gender of the name or the possible implications.

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“I don’t know if a female pseudonym would sell more than a male one, I don’t have the faintest idea, but I doubt it,” Mercero told Spain’s El País newspaper. “We didn’t hide behind a woman, we hid behind a name.”

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“Quite apart from using a female pseudonym, these guys have spent years doing interviews,” Beatriz Gimeno, a former head of the Women’s Institute, wrote on Twitter after the award’s announcement. “It’s not just the name — it’s the fake profile that they’ve used to take in readers and journalists. They are scammers.”

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The author page for Mola on their agent’s website includes a black-and-white photo of a slim woman with her back turned to the camera.

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