David Almonod is doubly gifted because he is a writer and because he is a writer who can write for children
Writer David Almond is the winner of the 2022 Nonino International Prize, the intellectual Nancy Fraser and the artist Mauro Ceruti instead won the ‘Masters of our time’ award and finally the Nonino Risit d’aur Barbatella d’oro award for the cultural entrustment project. They are the winners of the Nonino Forty-fifth year + two prizes indicated by the international jury chaired by Antonio Damasio, and composed of Adonis, Suad Amiry, John Banville, Peter Brook, Luca Cendali, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, James Lovelock, Claudio Magris, Norman Manea and Edgar Morin. The awards ceremony will be held on Saturday 7 May 2022, as usual, in Ronchi di Percoto, in the Nonino Distilleries. A date that will also mark the beginning of the celebrations for the Hundred Twenty-Five Years in Distillation of the Nonino Family. The Nonino Prize was established in 1975 by the Nonino family to save the ancient native Friulian vines in danger of extinction and for the enhancement of the Peasant Civilization. It is supported by Nonino Distillatori (www.grappanonino.it/Nonino).
David Almonod is doubly gifted because he is a writer and because he is a writer who can write for children. His classic novel for young people, Skellig (Salani), has been translated into forty languages, and has been adapted for theater, radio and screen. But the Jury especially wanted to mention his latest novel, La Guerra e ‘Finita, a story set during the Great War, a very moving story, with further pathos in these days. “When I write stories, I feel a connection with the very young, who will build a better tomorrow,” says Almond. The American thinker Nancy Fraser with unconventional thinking in a conformist world, in addition to the important contributions on the theme of ‘recognition’, addresses the problems of injustice in our society such as gender, race / ethnicity and class. As a critical theorist, she analyzes them, reveals their root causes and suggests how they could be remedied.
By Mauro Ceruti the Jury underlined the incredible variety and richness of the research, which takes the problems, contradictions, enrichment and cultural devastation of our life by the throat. His books help to know the small and large infinity but also not to fear it, to feel its enrichment. Cultural Fostering is a project selected by the social enterprise “With the children”, in the context of the Fund to combat juvenile educational poverty; departing from Naples proposes to mobilize, against educational poverty, “resource families”, enhancing the experience of family fostering, but declining it on the specific use of cultural products and services. Thus, a parent who usually takes their children to the cinema, to the theater, to the museum or to the bookstore, also brings us a child – possibly with a member of the latter’s family – who would not enter these places for various reasons. To date, the project is active in seven Italian cities: in addition to Naples, Rome, Bari, Modena, Milan, Teramo and Cagliari.