2023-07-05 16:46:02
Tomorrow evening, Thursday 6 July, everything is ready at the Ninfeo of Villa Giulia in Rome to welcome the final of the 77th edition of the Strega Prize, promoted by the Maria and Goffredo Bellonci Foundation and by Liquore Strega. Who will succeed Mario Desiati who won the 2022 edition with “Spatriati” (Einaudi)? In all likelihood, 2023 will bring a winner, given that there are four out of five authors in the final. And according to the rumors that circulate insistently, there is also a super favorite: it is Rosella Postorino, with “I limit myself to loving you” (Feltrinelli), who with 217 votes leads the five, already multi-award-winning with the appreciated “The Tasters” (Feltrinelli).
In the five, the presence of Ada D’Adamo stands out, competing with “Come d’aria” (Elliot), a debutant writer who died at the age of 55 on April 1, the same day she learned she was a candidate for the Strega. And she too is very probable winner, so much so that there are those who dare to count the last vote with Postorino. After all, a posthumous victory at the Strega is nothing new: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa has already won with “Il Gattopardo” in 1959 and Maria Teresa Di Doccia with “Passage in the shade” in 1985. The five is completed by Maria Grazia Calandrone with “Where you didn’t take me” (Einaudi); Andrea Canobbio with “The night crossing” (The ship of Theseus); Romana Petri with “Stealing the night” (Mondadori).
The Strega Prize will be awarded by a jury made up of 400 Amici della Domenica, as the historical jury is called, in addition to 220 votes expressed by Italian and foreign scholars, translators and intellectuals selected from over 30 Italian Cultural Institutes abroad, 20 strong readers and 20 collective votes expressed by schools, universities and reading groups, including the circles set up at the Libraries of Rome, for a total of 660 entitled. The counting of the ballots, with the seat chaired by Mario Desiati, will take place live on Rai Tre television at 11pm, with Geppi Cucciari conducting, and the winner will most likely be known after midnight.
The usual toast with the winner will be made in the unique and numbered glasses of the Strata collection, designed by the designer Lucia Massari and handmade in Murano by the historic Mion glassworks for the Witch Alberti Benevento.
The stages of the Strega Tour that will host the winner of the LXXVII edition of the Prize are: 8 July, Ugo da Como Foundation, Lonato del Garda; 9 July, Rome Literature Festival; 11 July, Cervo Bewitches You; July 22, The Possible Book, Vieste; July 30, Marciana Marina; from 25 to 30 August Benevento Città Spettacolo.
Since 2018, a prize has also been awarded to the five, the result of a competition of ideas organized by Bper Banca and aimed at all the state Academies of Fine Arts for the creation of a sculpture inspired by the craft of writing and the importance of promoting reading. The five 2023 will receive a work created by Giulia Facchin, a student of the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, whose title is “Perseverance”: “a tribute to all the written and thrown away, but still precious, pages that brought writers and award-winning writers to achieve their prestigious milestones.”
The presentation of the final evening took place today at the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia with the participation of its director Valentino Nizzo, Giovanni Solimine, president of the Maria and Goffredo Bellonci Foundation, Giuseppe D’Avino, president of Strega Alberti Benevento, and Lorena De Vita, of the Bper Banca Sponsorships & Events Office. In the second part of the press conference, Stefano Petrocchi, director of the Bellonci Foundation, and Mario Desiati, Premio Strega 2022, president of the polling station for this edition, joined the five finalists, which were announced last June 7 at the Roman Theater of Benevento.
The LXXVII edition saw the Strega Tour grow further, Solimine said: present in 10 regions, it reached Genoa, Book Capital 2023, and was present in the Brescia area, the city with Bergamo Capital of Culture 2023, with the Salo meeting. The cinquina met the public in 14 stages throughout Italy, one of which as always abroad, at the Italian Cultural Institute in Berlin. To these was added the meeting in Naples, in the auditorium of the Mann – National Archaeological Museum, for the proclamation of the winner of the Premio Strega Giovani.
The first leg of the tour was followed by Ticket to Read’s RV. On board, the producers Margherita Schirmacher and Enrico Orlandi, who created a series of podcasts available on the main platforms describing the journey of the five finalists. The interviews were carried out inside a Chausson Italia camper which escorted the tour to the stops in Florence, Modena, Salò, Parma, Rimini and Rome.
The Strega Prize has always sought an exchange with other art forms. For this reason, Streghe d’autore was born in 2016, a project through which some of the best Italian illustrators – Alessandro Baronciani, Emanuele Fior, Riccardo Guasco, Lorenzo Mattotti, Franco Matticchio, Emiliano Ponzi, Olimpia Zagnoli – created the poster of the Award, freely inspired to the design by Mino Maccari on the first voting urn, used from 1947 to 1980. The image that accompanied the 2023 Strega Prize was created by Elisa Seitzinger: “a witch inspired by the figure of Hecate, lady of magic and spells. Psychopomp divinity, able to travel freely between the real world, the gods and the realm of the dead, like a literary muse who inspires writers and women, such as the Madonna del parto by Piero della Francesca, from whose hair emerge the twelve finalist books of the Premio Strega 2023”.
The press conference was also an opportunity to talk about a year of activities and collaborations that will not end with the final evening of the award. To the usual activity of enhancing the connection between the audiovisual sector and literature carried out together with the Roma Lazio Film Commission (project ‘The bewitched image – Screens and stories”), is added the collaboration with Tirreno Power, an electricity producer that celebrates next 12 July, at the Civitavecchia Music Citadel, we will have the opportunity to talk about the transformation and future of the cultural world together with the president of the Bellonci Foundation Giovanni Solimine, while authors of the Strega Prize – Teresa Ciabatti, Daniele Mencarelli, Edoardo Nesi and Nadia Terranova – will reflect on the words Environment, Economy, People, Territory, which are key concepts of the company’s annual sustainability report. This experience will become a podcast in four episodes, edited by Chiara Tagliaferri, distributed by storie libero .fm.
(by Paolo Martini)
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