‘Mixture is an asset, not a threat’, words by Paolo Crepet

Crepet is expected in Lignano Sabbiadoro next Saturday, first on the occasion of his public meeting at 5pm at Cinecity, then with all the winners, for the final Awards Ceremony, again on Saturday, at 8.45pm at Cinecity. Between mixing and contamination, the thought as of Mitteleuropa, a recurring reference in Crepet’s latest essay, “Reclaiming your soul” (HarperCollins): “because Mitteleuropa represents a culture of contamination. It is an area that has produced ideas, artistic movements, literature and thought capable of crossing borders. We cannot forget what these cultures have left us. Our identity is not born from closure, but from the continuous meeting between different peoples, languages ​​and traditions”. And speaking of identity, it is precisely in the border culture that Crepet finds his: “My father was Venetian, my mother was born in Zadar, my ancestors were French. In my family there were already seas, mountains and different cultures that met”.

“With a direct, passionate and never defeatist language, Crepet has been able to restore centrality to emotions, educational responsibility and the need for free thought, capable of escaping the drifts of homologation”: these are the reasons for awarding the 2026 Hemingway Prize to Paolo Crepet, who will present his latest literary effort in Lignano in dialogue with the curator of pordenonelegge Valentina Gasparet: a book conceived as an antidote against homologation, “Take back your soul”: against the risks of technocracy and the underground and explicit violence that runs through our times. Author of dozens of extraordinarily successful essays – including “Lessons of dreams”, “Take the moon” and “The courage” – Crepet held over four thousand public evenings, filling the main Italian theatres. Today he invites readers to regain their interiority, to escape from that emotional and digital anesthesia that risks extinguishing the desires and passions of the new generations.