The Strega Prize turns 80 and reveals the dozen

Witch Award gets to the heart of things and reveals the dozen of the eightieth edition. The twelve titles admitted to the final selection were announced today in the Hall of the Temple of Vibia Sabina and Hadrian, in Rome, by Melania G. Mazzucco, who chose together with the Steering Committee among the 79 works proposed by the Sunday friends. The one who is hoarding applications is Einaudiwhich carries three titles, followed by The Ship of Theseus with two. Running for the final evening in the Campidoglio there are Maria Attanasio with ‘La Rosa Inversa’ (Sellerio), Ermanno Cavazzoni with ‘Storia di un’ amici’ (Quodlibet), Teresa Ciabatti with ‘Donnaregina’ (Mondadori), Mauro Covacich with ‘Lina e il sasso’ (La nave di Teseo), Michele Mari with ‘I convitati di pietra’ (Einaudi), Matteo Nucci with ‘Plato. A love story’ (Feltrinelli), Alcide Pierantozzi with ‘Lo sbilico’ (Einaudi), Bianca Pitzorno with ‘La sonnambula’ (Bompiani), Christian Raimo with ‘The invention of colour’ (La nave di Teseo), Elena Rui with ‘Vedove di Camus’ (L’orma), Nadeesha Uyangoda with ‘Acqua dirty’ (Einaudi) and Marco Vichi with ‘Occhi of a little girl’ (Guanda).

According to Mazzucco, the clearest signal this year is “the return of the novel“, together with the return “of history and stories”, while autobiographies, family memoirs and autofiction that had marked the last editions retreat. In the selection, the writer observed, themes such as the Work and the sexalongside a renewed dimension of literary game.

Edition numbers

I numbers they tell a very extensive edition: 79 candidatesof which 46 authors and 33 female authors. The youngest is 20 years old, the oldest is 94. Almost all the large and medium-sized ones are in the race Italian publishing housestogether with 44 small ones.

Who decides the winner

To decide the winner they will be 800 voters: 460 Friends of Sunday, 245 readers from abroad selected by 35 Italian cultural institutes, 30 collective votes expressed by schools, universities and reading clubs of the Libraries of Rome, and 65 strong readers chosen from professions and entrepreneurship.

The next stages and the final

The next stop will be the June 3when the five finalists. The final evening is scheduled forJuly 8 at the Capitollive on Rai 3: a symbolic venue to celebrate the bond between prize and Romethe city where Strega was born and raised.

Strega youth award and Strega tour

The books of the dozen will also contribute to the Young Witch Awardwhich will be assigned on 27 maggio at the PalaCep in Genoa by a jury of over a thousand students from 125 high schools, in Italy and abroad. It’s back again this year Witch Tourwith over 25 stops throughout Italy and one abroad, among Mexico City and Guadalajara, in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute, as part of the cultural dialogue with Mexico in view of Italy’s participation as guest of honor at the FIL in December.

Events for the 80th anniversary

For the eighty years of the award is also scheduled show which will open the April 29th at the MACRO in Rome. The itinerary will tell the history of the prize through over a thousand volumes selected from 1947 to today, including books, images, controversies and public voting rituals. Always for the anniversary, Mondadori will republish “Il Premio Strega” by Maria Bellonci, with a preface by Giovanni Solimine and an afterword by Ernesto Ferrero. The volume will be presented on May 15th at the Turin Book Fair.