As we near the end of the year, the Pontas Agency reflects on the key moments, ideas, and stories that we celebrated at Pontas in 2025.
To start off with audiovisual news, we were so pleased to be able to attend not one but two projects that were shot this year: the late Domingo Villar’s iconic novels featuring Inspector Caldas are coming to life through a TV series by Spanish producer Secuoya. The first season, shot in Vigo (in the region of Galicia), will be based on El último barco (The Last Ferry, Siruela, 2019) and the producer has plans for subsequent seasons based on the other Inspector Caldas books.
In Barcelona, K&S Films shot the adaptation of a novel that Pontas client Olivier Truc wrote with Spanish author Rosa Montero (both pictured below at the shooting): L’inconnue du port (The Mystery Woman at the Port), originally published by Points in French, and translated into Spanish by Alfaguara/PRH. All rights currently handled by Points. The film is being shot for Netflix, with a release date set for 2026.
The film tells the story of a woman (played by Ana Rujas) who is found by the police inside a container at the port of Barcelona. Unable to remember her identity, she is taken to the hospital, where her life is once again in danger following an attempted murder. Detective Anna Ripoll (played by Candela Peña) is assigned to investigate this enigmatic case alongside Officer Quique Zárate (played by Pol López). Together, they embark on a race against time to uncover the identity of this mysterious woman and the secrets hidden in her memory.
In further audiovisual news, Wolfgang, extraordinary by Laia Aguilar was adapted into a major Catalan feature film (produced by Nostromo and co-written by the author herself) and it topped the Spanish Box Office in its first week in theaters, marking the most successful cinematic release ever for a Catalan language film. Wolfgang, extraordinary is a MG novel with crossover potential, reminiscent of other internationally bestselling titles with protagonists on the spectrum. It was originally published in 2016 by Columna in Catalan to great commercial success and it was the winner of the 2016 Carlemany Award and the 2018 Atrapallibres Prize. Over 20,000 copies have been sold in Catalan and the publisher is currently on their 15th reprint. The Spanish translation was published by Crossbooks, Wydawnictwo Widnokrąg published it in Polish, and De Fontein will publish it in Dutch in 2026. All other translation rights are available.
Seeing an adaptation reach the screens, whether big or small, is always a dream come true.
In prize news for Pontas clients, early in the year, we were pleased to share that These Letters End in Tears by Musih Tedji Xaviere had shortlisted for Book of the Year in the DISCOVER category at The Bookseller's 2025 British Book Awards! These Letters End in Tears is UK-based Cameroonian author Musih Tedji Xaviere's debut and it was published in March 2024 by Jacaranda Books in the UK, by Catapult in the US, and by Masobe Books in Nigeria. It was the winner of the 2021 Pontas and JJ Bola Emerging Writer’s Prize. The novel has been translated into Dutch (Orlando), Danish (Klim), and Italian (Astoria) and all other translation and audiovisual rights are available.
As for the last prize news of the year, Tamarin by Mauritian author Priya Hein (The Indigo Press (September 2025), was shortlisted for the prestigious 2026 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards in the Fiction with a Sense of Place category, alongside authors such as Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah and Irene Solà! The winners will be announced in March 2026. All translation and audiovisual rights for Tamarin are available.
Indian author Bhavika Govil, Musih Tedji Xaviere’s co-winner for the 2021 Pontas and JJ Bola Emerging Writer’s Prize, published her debut novel Hot Water in April 2025 with HarperCollins India and the work has also been selected as a shortlistee for two prestigious prizes in India, the Godrej Literature Live! Literary Awards for Best First Book of Fiction and the 2025 PVLF Author Excellence Awards for Best Debut Fiction. Hot Water will be published in France with Éditions La Martinière in 2026 and all other translation and audiovisual rights are available.
Speaking of prizes and France, Gallimard's French edition of Spanish bestselling author Dolores Redondo’s Awaiting the Flood (Esperando al diluvio, Planeta, 2022) won the 2025 Trophée 813 - Michèle Witta Prize for Best International Novel, given our yearly since 1983 by the crime writing association "813". We’re looking forward to Gallimard’s next translation of Dolores Redondo’s work: they will published Those Who Don’t Sleep NASH (Las que no duermen NASH) in 2026. The novel was originally published in Spanish in late 2024 and has sold over a whopping 300,000 copies.
Last but not least, we also celebrated that in this year's The Observer (The Guardian) list of Best New Novelists for 2025 (previous picks include Sally Rooney, Douglas Stuart, Caleb Azumah Nelson and Bonnie Garmus), British-Jamaican writer Marcia Hutchinson was among those selected, for her debut novel The Mercy Step, which was published as a lead title by UK publisher Cassava Republic Press in July.
We can't wait to see what stories and adaptations 2026 will bring. Watch this space...
Happy New Year!
The Pontas team