Strega Prize 2024, Donatella Di Pietrantonio wins with ‘L’età fragile’

Donatella Di Pietrantonio with ‘L’età fragile’ (Einaudi) is the winner of the 78th edition of the Strega Prize. The writer from Abruzzo, in the usual setting of the Nymphaeum of Villa Giulia in Rome. The total number of votes cast, 644 (equal to 92% of those entitled to vote), led to the victory of Di Pietrantonio with 189 votes. Dario Voltolini followed with ‘Invernale’ (La nave di Teseo), with 143 votes; Chiara Valerio with ‘Chi dice e chi tace’ (Sellerio), with 138 votes; Raffaella Romagnolo with ‘Aggiustare l’universo’ (Mondadori), with 83 votes; Paolo Di Paolo with ‘Romanzo senza umani’ (Feltrinelli), with 66 votes and Tommaso Giartosio with ‘Autobiogrammatica’ (minimum fax), with 25 votes.

“I just want to promise that I will use my written and oral voices in defense of the rights that my generation of women fought so hard for. and which today I no longer find obvious”, the first comment of Donatella Di Pietrantonio after receiving the symbolic prize with the bottle of Strega liqueur.

The jury of the Award is composed of the votes of the 400 Friends of Sunday, to which are added as usual 245 votes expressed by Italian and foreign scholars, translators and intellectuals selected by 35 Italian cultural institutes abroad, 30 votes of strong readers chosen from the world of professions and business and 25 collective votes expressed by schools, universities and reading groups, including the circles established at the Libraries of Rome. Among the new jurors, who joined the Friends of Sunday this year are: Roberto Andò, Alessandro Baricco, Anna Bonaiuto, Giulia Caminito, Giordano Bruno Guerri, Mauro Mazza, Antonella Polimeni, Loretta Santini and Roberto Vecchioni.

The evening was broadcast live on Rai 3, hosted by Geppi Cucciari and Pino Strabioli. Stefano Petrocchi, director of the Maria and Goffredo Bellonci Foundation, presided over the voting station in the absence of the writer awarded in the previous edition, Ada d’Adamo, who passed away on April 1st of last year. A novelty of this edition was the reinstatement of the live counting. The last hundred votes were counted one by one until the winning author was announced.

Speakers included: Giovanni Solimine, president of the Bellonci Foundation, who presented the new project Stories of the Suburbs. Bringing the Suburbs Back to the Center of History, a project on the transformative power of culture and beauty that in its first year of activity includes an intervention in the municipality of Caivano (Na) and the Tor Bella Monaca neighborhood of Rome, involving schools, libraries, bookshops and associations in the area; Giuseppe D’Avino, president of Strega Alberti Benevento, who recalled the figure of Guido Alberti and his friendship with Maria Bellonci, whose union gave birth to the Strega Prize; Luana Toniolo, director of the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia. Cristina Comencini, Vittorio Lingiardi and Piero Dorfles were also interviewed, who talked about some of the books in the Prize’s roll of honor.

During the evening, Fabio Cerchiai, president of BPER Banca, presented the authors of the final six with a special award created by Giulio Fulignati, entitled Il Noce. The student of the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence won the seventh edition of the Strega BPER Art ideas competition, announced by BPER Banca for the creation of a sculpture inspired by the craft of writing and the importance of promoting reading.

The Strega Tour will continue for the winner of the LXXVIII edition, touching Lonato del Garda on July 7, Rome (Literature Festival) on July 9, the Marina di Villasimius Festival on July 21, Vieste (The Possible Book) on July 26, Marciana Marina on August 3, Cortina d’Ampezzo on August 8 (A Mountain of Books), and then resume at the end of the month and conclude in autumn.