Time.news – After two years of forced pause due to the pandemic, the Italy Japan Business Group, the Forum of Italian and Japanese entrepreneurs which is held alternately in Italy and Japan annually, and with it the Award dedicated to the memory of the its first president Umberto Agnelli and of the Italy-Japan Foundation.
For the year 2020 the jury, which met under the presidency of Umberto Donati, resolved to award the prize to Professor Giorgio Amitrano and the Italian ambassador to Singapore, Mario Vattani. This is what we read in a press release. Amitrano, professor of Japanese literature, language and culture at the University of Naples L’Orientale, is also the award-winning translator of Banana Yoshimoto and Murakami Haruki.
He is also a writer, essayist and authoritative yamatologist; from 2012 to 2019 he brilliantly directed the Italian Cultural Institute in Tokyo. Among his essays, “The world of Banana Yoshimoto” and “Iro Iro – Japan between pop and Sublime” stand out, a sentimental journey in real and literary Japan, born of a lifelong love and told with extraordinary poetry which narrates authentic and multifaceted Japan, beyond stereotypes and prejudices. Amitrano regularly collaborates with the major Italian newspapers and with authoritative magazines on the problems of the Orient and of Japan in particular.
For the year 2022, the jury resolved to award the Prize to the Italian Ambassador to Singapore Mario Vattani. Vattani played his part diplomatic activity twice in Japan: at the Italian Embassy in Tokyo and as consul general in Osaka.
A profound connoisseur of Japanese culture, Mario Vattani was not only inspired by the customs of the Rising Sun, learning their language and traditions, but it can be said that his whole life is linked to the red thread of this passion.
In 2016, Mondadori published his novel “Doromizu – Acqua torbida”, which was met with critical and public success; later, “La via del Sol Levante” (included in the official celebrations of the 150 years of Italy-Japan friendship) and the novels “Al Tayar – La Corrente” in 2019 and “Rika” in 2021 are released in 2017.
In 2020 the voluminous essay “Unveiling Japan” was published by Giunti deals with the Japanese world in an original way not so much from a philosophical and doctrinal point of view, but through the customs and way of living and thinking of the Japanese in daily life. As soon as it was released, the book won the Casino di Sanremo A. Semeria literary prize and reached its fourth reprint in a few months, continues the note.
The 2021 edition of the Prize will be delivered together with the 2023 edition in Japan. This recognition was established by the will of Umberto Agnelli (1934-2004), to give a sign of recognition to Italian and Japanese professionals of the Italian and Japanese press, the world of information and dissemination who work in spreading and deepening knowledge of the two countries in various political, economic, social and cultural aspects. Organized by the Italy-Japan Foundation, it was awarded for the first time in 1992.