 The award is presented for works in Spanish, Portuguese, English, and French by writers from Latin America and the Caribbean.In addition to the main categories of fiction, poetry, and essays, there are categories for narrative and children's literature.The award was founded in 1959 as the Hispanic American Literary Competition ("Concurso Literario Hispanoamericano"), as a Latin American counterpart to the British Booker Prize and the U.S. Pulitzer Prize.