Isabel Allende has won this year’s edition of Spain’s Planeta Prize on Thursday for the sequel to her bestselling ​fiction debut, four decades after the Chilean novelist introduced readers to the Trueba family’s ghosts, secrets and upheavals.

The prestigious award carrying a €1 million ($1.16 million) cash prize went to Allende’s “La hora antes del alba” (The Hour Before Dawn). It ​follows one of the characters from her acclaimed “The House of the ​Spirits”, published in 1982.

“It’s like winning the Nobel (Prize),” the 84-year-old ⁠writer told reporters after the ceremony on Thursday night in Barcelona ​led by Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia.

The new novel focuses on ​Alba, granddaughter of Esteban Trueba and Clara del Valle, as she rebuilds her life after imprisonment and torture under the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

The prize is among ​the Spanish-speaking world’s most commercially important literary awards, although it also draws ​regular criticism over a selection process that is piecemeal, theatrical and often seen as ‌favouring ⁠established names.