Strega Prize, the 12 finalist books announced: titles and authors

Witch Award announced today the dozen of the LXXX edition in the Hall of the Temple of Vibia Sabina and Hadrian in Rome. It was Melania G. Mazzucco who announced among the 79 works proposed by the Sunday friends the twelve admitted to compete and selected by the Steering Committee composed of Pietro Abate, Giuseppe D’Avino, Valeria Della Valle, Alberto Foschini, Paolo Giordano, Dacia Maraini, Gabriele Pedullà, Stefano Petrocchi, Marino Sinibaldi and Giovanni Solimine.

I’m in the race: Maria Attanasio with ‘La Rosa Inversa’ (Sellerio), proposed by Ottavia Piccolo; Ermanno Cavazzoni with ‘Story of a Friendship’ (Quodlibet), proposed by Massimo Raffaeli; Teresa Ciabatti with ‘Donnaregina’ (Mondadori), proposed by Roberto Saviano; Mauro Covacich with ‘Lina and the stone’ (The ship of Theseus), proposed by Edoardo Nesi; Michele Mari with ‘The stone guests’ (Einaudi), proposed by Vittorio Lingiardi; Matteo Nucci with ‘Plato. A love story (Feltrinelli), proposed by Giancarlo De Cataldo; Alcide Pierantozzi with ‘Lo sbilico’ (Einaudi), proposed by Donatella Di Pietrantonio; Bianca Pitzorno with ‘La sonnambula’ (Bompiani), proposed by Roberta Mazzanti; Christian Raimo with ‘The Invention of Color’ (The ship of Theseus), proposed by Luciana Castellina; Elena Rui with ‘Widows of Camus’ (The Footprint), proposed by Lisa Ginzburg; Nadeesha Uyangoda with ‘Dirty Water’ (Einaudi), proposed by Gaia Manzini; Marco Vichi with ‘Eyes of a little girl’ (Guanda), proposed by Laura Bosio.

The vote

The prize will be awarded by the vote of 800 eligible voters, distributed as follows: 460 Friends of Sunday, 245 voters from abroad selected by 35 Italian Cultural Institutes in the world, who contribute to the formation of the jury by each expressing 7 jurors among scholars, translators and enthusiasts of our language and literature, 30 collective votes expressed by schools, universities and reading clubs of the Libraries of Rome, 65 votes of strong readers chosen from the world of professions and of entrepreneurship.

The finalists and the winner

The proclamation of the finalists will be held on 3 June at the Roman Theater of Benevento, while the final evening will be held live on television on Rai 3 on 8 July at the Campidoglio: a highly symbolic choice that pays homage to Rome, the city that saw the birth and growth of the Award, and which reaffirms the profound connection with its cultural and civil history. The competing books will compete for the Premio Strega Giovani, now in its thirteenth edition, and will be read and voted by a jury made up of over a thousand students from 125 secondary schools in Italy and abroad. The announcement of the winning book will be held on May 27th at the PalaCep in Genoa.

The Witch Tour

This year too, the candidate and finalist authors of the Strega Prize will participate in the Strega Tour: over 25 stops throughout Italy plus one abroad, in Mexico City and Guadalajara in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Mexico City, thus strengthening the cultural dialogue between Italy and Mexico in view of the participation of our country as guest of honor at the Feria Internacional del Libro next December.

In the months of April and May the authors will also present their books at the Libraries of Rome: Thursday 16 April Marconi Library, Tuesday 21 April Nelson Mandela Library, Thursday 30 April Joyce Lussu Library, Monday 11 May Flaminia Library. The five finalists will be guests at Casa delle Letterature on Tuesday 30 June.

Eightieth edition

“79 candidates are competing in the eightieth edition of the Strega Prize, of which 46 male and female authors. The youngest is 20 years old, the oldest is 94. Those born in the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century prevail; in the minority are those in their thirties and forties. Almost all of the large and medium-sized Italian publishing houses are represented; 44 are the small ones: consolidated companies that have already participated in the prize are joined by others that are presenting for the first time – explained Mazzucco – The most relevant element of this year is the return of the novel. The return of history, and of stories, and the parallel contraction of autobiographical narratives, family memories and/or auto-fiction, which had instead prevailed in recent editions. These are novels that can be defined, with some distinction, as historical. Often the character of the writer acts as a witness/chronicler/investigator of collective events and phenomena. struggling with an indefinable profession, with crises of inspiration, the success or rejection of the publishing market, is undoubtedly the protagonist of this edition”. “Also significant is the return of work – a karst theme of Italian literature, which re-emerges with a cyclical nature – added Mazzucco – The story of sex is presented again. Which is updated to the contemporary. In a year in which the literary game is resurrecting, even combinatorial and free, sleepwalking as an imposture is proposed as a metaphor for literature”.

The illustration of this eightieth edition, as part of the Streghe d’Artista project, is by Marco Oggian, author of projects for numerous international brands, including Nike, Zara, Apple, Vogue, Samsung. The poster revolves around two symbolic figures, Literature and the Witch, distinct but complementary, united by the bottle of liquor, a central element that represents exchange and relationship. The staircase, located in the lower left part, symbolizes the path of literature, underlining the value of the creative process as well as the final goal.

At the center of the initiatives for the eightieth anniversary of the Strega Prize is the exhibition Uno, cinque, twelve. Eighty years of the Strega Prize, curated by Maria Luisa Frisa and Mario Lupano, which will be inaugurated on 29 April at the Macro – Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, created in collaboration with BPER Banca, Persol and Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana. The exhibition project signed by the Supervoid architecture studio, together with the graphic project curated by the Caneva-Nishimoto studio, will stage the different reading levels that the long history of the Strega Prize offers the visitor, presenting the “ideal library” composed of over a thousand volumes selected from 1947 to today, organized in a chronological sequence that tells, in parallel, the events, protagonists, controversies and media narratives that accompany the seventy-nine editions held so far. The prize timeline will show the candidate books for each year, the five and the winner in their first editions, according to a contemporary sensitivity that recognizes publishing as an art form. An uninterrupted photographic tape will develop along the large perimeter of the room, conveying the dramaturgy of the Award and the public and “spectacular” rituals of the voting. Short texts in the caption volume, a sort of pocket book to keep, will illustrate the salient facts of each year, making the act of reading an integral part of enjoying the exhibition. In the “room” at the center of the room, the most intimate dimension – domestic and at the same time collective and relational – of the Bellonci living room will be restored. Crossed by writers, publishers and artists, this space will be re-proposed as a diorama populated by the works and objects that inhabit the Bellonci house.

The anniversary book

Also on the occasion of this year’s important anniversary, ‘Il Premio Strega’ by Maria Bellonci will be republished by Mondadori with a preface by Giovanni Solimine and an afterword by Ernesto Ferrero. The book will be presented on May 15th at the Turin International Book Fair with Alessandro Barbero, Melania G. Mazzucco and Giovanni Solimine.

The Strega Award is promoted by the Maria and Goffredo Bellonci Foundation and Strega Alberti Benevento, with the support of Roma Capitale, Libraries of Rome and the Chamber of Commerce of Rome, partner BPER Banca, in collaboration with Persol and Eni, media partner Rai, technical sponsor Feltrinelli libraries.

Speakers at today’s meeting included Pietro Abate, general secretary of the Rome Chamber of Commerce, Giovanni Solimine, president of the Maria and Goffredo Bellonci Foundation, Giuseppe D’Avino, president of Strega Alberti Benevento, Massimiliano Smeriglio, councilor for culture of Roma Capitale, and Serena Morgagni, head of the BPER Banca Communication Department. The press conference was coordinated by Stefano Petrocchi, director of the Maria and Goffredo Bellonci Foundation.