This award, conceived by Josep Janés, was announced in 1947, to award authors of any nationality who wrote their first unpublished novel in any of the languages of the Spanish state. The prize was 25,000 pesetas and a Premi d'Honor (Honour Award) worth 10,000 pesetas to a national author if the first-prize winner was international. It was decided that the jury would have a permanent secretary and it would be made up on writers from various countries. The result of the first edition of the award was publicly announced on Easter Sunday 1948. The jury met at the home of Eugeni d'Ors. The first-prize winner was the Uruguayan writer Rodolfo Lucio Fonseca for Turris Eburnea and Francisco González Ledesma for Sombras viejas and Marius Gifreda with Sis o set sirenes were awarded the second prize. Other winners were Juan Antonio Espinosa with the work Zubeldía: el libro de los siete mares in 1949, Antonio Rabinad with La noche de Juan Doriac, in 1951, the last year this prize was awarded.