Spanish writer wins Nadal Prize

Spanish writer Fernando Marias has won Spain's oldest literary prize, the Nadal Prize, for his novel "El nino de los coroneles" -- The Colonels' Boy.

The jury said three-hundred-and-eighty-seven novels were in line for this year's prize, the fifty-seventh, which was worth three million pesetas, the equivalent of just over seventeen-thousand dollars.

The author said his novel was inspired by the kidnapping of children by colonels backing former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu to make them his puppets.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service