Witch Prize 2021, here is the cinquina- Corriere.it

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I’m Emanuele Trevi with Two lives (Neri Pozza), Edith Bruck with The lost bread (The Ship of Theseus), Donatella Di Pietrantonio with Borgo Sud (Einaudi), Giulia Caminito with The water of the lake is never sweet (Bompiani) and Andrea Bajani with The book of houses (Feltrinelli) the finalists of the 2021 Strega Prize. The announcement of the five arrived on Thursday 10 June, in the evening, in the splendid setting of the Roman Theater of Benevento. And if it has not yet been possible to return to the hugs and complicit handshakes of Casa Bellonci, suspended due to the pandemic, the ceremony was dedicated to the return to normalcy. Large audience and steering committee in the auditorium (well spaced and with masks) and competitors on stage, no longer alone as happened last year in Rome at the Temple of Hadrian. The five returns to that after the 5 + 1 of last year, the first in application of the rule that wants – if among the first five there is not – at least one nominated to represent the small publishers.

Edith Bruck also received the Young Strega Award, now in its eighth edition: The book – said the author – was born because once, on a red carpet for an award, I felt the need to go back to the memory of that Hungarian Jewish girl who had been deported and to whom they had killed many family members. The memory that the world, Europe want to forget. The final voting of the Witch will be held on July 8th.


The results have been announced live streaming on Rai Play. Leading the evening Gigi Marzullo, who interviewed the candidates for the Prize while the counting of votes took place live on the stage, at the end of which Sandro Veronesi, seat president and winner of the last edition, proclaimed the five. the first time that you return to the Samnite city for the five: in the 75-year history of the Prize, in fact, Benevento had so far hosted the selection of the dozen. A choice determined in part by the restrictions imposed by the pandemic and in part by the final touches of the renovation of Casa Bellonci, the historic site of the Premio Strega: Now the works are finished, but the anti Covid rules do not allow us to welcome the many people who usually attend the appointment – explained Giovanni Solimine, president of the Maria and Goffredo Bellonci Foundation -. It seemed right, in a special year for the Prize, to hold the meeting for the five finalists in Benevento, the city of the Strega Liquor.

They therefore leave the competition the works of Teresa Ciabatti It looked like beauty (Mondadori), by the translator and essayist Daniele Petruccioli, in his narrative debut, The home of the mothers (TerraRossa), by Roberto Venturini The year that was Christmas twice in Rome (Sem), by Maria Grazia Calandrone Shine like life (Ponte alle Grazie), by Lisa Ginzburg How to pace (Ponte alle Grazie), by Alice Urciolo Adoration (66thand2nd) and Giulio Mozzi The repetitions (Marsilio). Books that had entered the dozen semi-finalists last March 22 by choice of the steering committee, chaired by Melania G. Mazzucco.

This of 2021 certainly a particular edition not only for the headquarters, but as an edition of the pandemic – of which readers find traces, albeit indirectly, in the settings and themes of many selected books – and for the exceptional number of candidates. A comforting record, because – underlines Stefano Petrocchi, director of the Bellonci Foundation – the 62 titles proposed are an act of trust in this cultural institution. The prize – promoted by the Maria and Goffredo Bellonci Foundation and by the Liquore Strega – therefore closed the shortlist: the books chosen were announced after the ballot, in the Roman Theater, of the votes received electronically; to express them, a jury composed of 660 entitled. To the votes of the Friends of Sunday (400 voters) are added those expressed by strong readers chosen from independent bookstores distributed throughout Italy, by scholars, translators and enthusiasts of our language and literature selected by Italian cultural institutes abroad, and the votes collectives expressed by schools, universities and reading groups, including the circles set up by the Libraries of Rome.

These are the votes that went to the finalists: Emanuele Trevi, 256 votes; Edith Bruck, 221; Donatella Di Pietrantonio, 220 votes; Giulia Caminito, 215 votes; Andrea Bajani, 203 votes. After Edith Bruck’s testimony, the other four finalists, having to describe their books in a minute, also tried to summarize them in one concept. Trevi spoke of friendship and love, two abstract poles, but when one moves from friendship to love, what is missing is gratuity. For Di Pietrantonio, the story he tells wants to teach the consequences of lack of love: if you have not known, learned the language of affection in the family, that language becomes more difficult as adults. While Giulia Caminito warned readers: The story lasts, mine a tough book. A light at the end of the tunnel? Rather I would say a glow. And Bajani underlined the difficulty that each of us has in seeing himself from the outside: We are convinced, when we say “I” that we are always the same person, but not. We are different in every place, house we have lived. I too am the houses that I have inhabited.

June 10, 2021 (change June 13, 2021 | 21:31)

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