Xavier Nueno wins 54th Anagrama Essay Prize

Barcelona-born author and researcher Xavier Nueno has been awarded the 54th Anagrama Essay Prize for his work, ‘La revuelta de los copistas: Cómo el conocimiento perdió el juicio’. The award includes a prize of 10,000 euros.

In his essay, Nueno critiques the way technology companies have appropriated universal knowledge to train algorithms and monetize it through private subscriptions. He argues that the privatization of information, once freely accessible in libraries, has transformed collective intellectual heritage into a commodity.

Nueno, a Harvard-educated doctor in Visual and Media Studies and a researcher at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, uses a historical perspective to trace the automation of knowledge. He highlights the essential roles of scribes, stenographers, librarians, and archivists in organizing human information. The jury praised the work for its lucidity and its ability to challenge the perceived value of algorithms as a primary form of knowledge.