Guillermo Martínez, a visiting professor at the University of Virginia, has been awarded the first Gabriel Garcia Marquez Hispano-America Short Story Prize, already noted as a distinguished prize in Spanish literature. He was recognized for his short story collection, “Una Felicidad Repulsiva (A Repugnant Happiness).”

This semester, the Argentine novelist and short-story writer is teaching two courses – one for undergraduates and another for graduate students – about recent Latin American literature and creative literature – in U.Va.’s Department of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese as its distinguished writer in residence.

Martínez has met many U.Va. and community members, especially since delivering a public talk in October with another prominent Argentinian writer, Mempo Giardinelli, about their writing and the new Latin American literature.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos congratulated the winning author Nov. 21 during a literary festival in Bogotá.

Martínez, whose most successful novel is “Crímenes Imperceptibles (The Oxford Murders),” said he was happy to win the award and highlighted the prize as “extraordinary” for being associated with Gabriel García Márquez, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, who died in April.

“Una Felicidad Repulsiva” was published in September 2013 and has not yet been translated into English. It is available in Alderman Library.

The award, which comes with a cash prize of $100,000, is “a beacon for Spanish-language short story writers,” Martínez said at the Bogotá ceremony.

The short story “has been present because it is the archetype of narration and storytelling in the world,” the 52-year-old writer said.