Ada D’Adamo won the Strega Prize

2023-07-07 08:42:28

Time.news – ‘Come d’aria’ by Ada D’Adamo (published by Elliot) won the 77th edition of the 2023 Strega Prize with 185 votes. In the setting of the garden of the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome, the presenter Geppi Cucciari presented the prize posthumously (the writer passed away after a long illness before even knowing she had ended up in the top five) for the 12th female winner in the history of the prestigious literary recognition that is assigned every year to a book published in Italy.

The five finalist authors also included Maria Grazia Calandrone with “Where you didn’t bring me” (Einaudi), Andrea Canobbio with “The night crossing” (La nave di Teseo), Romana Petri with “Stealing the night” (Mondadori) and Rosella Postorino with “I limited myself to loving you” (Feltrinelli).

The other prizes

“Come d’aria” has already won the Strega Off 2023, a parallel vote that traditionally takes place at the Monk in Rome on the evening preceding the official one at Villa Giulia.

It had also won the Strega Giovani Prize, awarded by school readers, and received 83 preferences out of 503. The jury was made up of girls and boys aged between 16 and 18 from 91 schools in Italy and abroad. The prize was received by Alfredo Favi, Ada’s husband, because she disappeared on April 1st of this year, immediately after learning that she had entered the dozen of the Strega Prize. The writer who died on April 1, immediately after learning that she was among the finalists, had been chosen by school readers, and she received 83 preferences out of 503.

Who was Ada D’Adamo

She was not a “professional” writer, D’Adamo, but an artist. She was born in Ortona, she lived and worked in Rome in 1967, where she graduated from the National Academy of Dance and graduated in Performing Arts Disciplines. You have spent a lot of time observing the body and its declinations on the contemporary scene, and you have written about it in several essays on dance and theatre.

It was the personal experience of the mother of a little girl born in 2005 with a rare form of brain malformation that led her to writing. The title of the memoir plays on the name of the little girl, Daria, which like a whisper suggests that the girl born with a disability is made “like air” for those who love her.

The story of “Come d’aria”

Ada D’Adamo in “Come d’aria” recounts the birth and early years of her daughter Daria, suffering from a serious congenital disease. When Ada herself discovers in 2017 that she in turn has a tumor and that she has to undergo very heavy treatments, her main fear is that of losing physical contact with Daria, which is a fundamental part of communicating with a child who has frailties so important.

“Having a disabled child – writes D’Adamo in his memoir – means being alone. Hopelessly, definitely alone. There is no going back. It will never be the same again. It is as if the palm weevil had settled inside you and slowly gnaws the plant from the inside, transforming it into a shell full of sawdust. The surface remains the same, but under the edges, under the skin, there is nothing left. Loneliness is made of small dots, one next to the other. You don’t notice it.”

Reading allows you to follow this woman and this mother in a lucid and moving memoir in which the body has a central relief, as in dance, an art dear to the author and in which, alongside fears, fatigue and pain there is space for the power of affections.

“I hope that reading it can help people feel less alone, especially those who find themselves in Ada’s unfortunate condition”. This is how Loretta Santini, editor of the Elliot publishing house, presented it, who took the place of the author in all the months that preceded the announcement of the winner of the Strega Prize. Always feeling “out of place among the authors”, but always honoring the work and the figure of the writer that she and Elliott have chosen to publish.

The precedent of Mariateresa Di Leaves

Another author was crowned winner of the Strega Prize a few months after her death. Mariateresa Di Doccia, writer and politician, leading figure of the radical party, died in 1994, at the age of 40, due to a serious illness. Her novel, “Passage in the Shadow, triumphed the following year, in another very feminine edition with 4 authors in the final five.

Discia, companion of Sergio D’Elia, was very active in the field of human rights, founding, among other things, the association “Hands Off Cain”, for the abolition of the death penalty in the world.