Andrea Bajani wins the superfavorite with 194 votes for ‘The Anniversary’ (Feltrinelli) The Witch 2025 Award (even if the wrong number of 187 votes had been written on the hurry board), A final evening after a eve of tensions between the organizers and the government who thinks about the move to Cinecittà For the main Italian literary prize in 2026, 80 years of anniversary.
«I have been publishing books for twenty -two years. Gratitude to those who believed in me, readers, publishers. This year it is the 60 years of Feltrinelli who believed in me, “said Bajani, excited by drinking from the bottle of the witch liqueur. “Literature is to contradict the official version,” added the writer in minimal dress.
The evening of July 3, in which The absence of the Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli stands out For institutional commitments in Berlin, «it could be the last final evening of the Strega Award at the Nymphaeum of Villa Giulia in Rome. For next year – explain sources of the Roman College – the Ministry of Culture reserves the right to offer the Bellonci Foundation the Cinecittà headquarters “.
Already a winner of the 2025 Strega Youth Prize and already a finalist at the Strega and Campiello Prize in 2021 with the book of the houses (Feltrinelli), Bajani naked in ‘The anniversary’, between novel and autofition, the deadly weaves of an overwhelming family with a double step: “On the one hand the story of the domestic hell, on the other the detachment of those who think of all this. The idea of the escape is always within the idea of guilt, “says Bajani. On the award ceremony of the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome, the aftermath of the aftermath of the controversies on the eve of the organizers and Giuli had also underlined “that he had” not received any books “and had ironized:” As a friend on Sunday I became an enemy of Sunday “referring to the jury of the prize. But the director of the Bellonci Foundation, Stefano Petrocchi, before the live broadcast on Rai3, conducted by Pino Strabioli, reassured: “Today we sent the finalists’ books to Minister Giuli and from Berlin thanked through his office”.
Present the president of the Chamber Culture Commission and National Head of Culture and Innovation of Fratelli d’Italia, Federico Mollicone who says: «The Strega Prize is a high and popular party. Here is the whole editorial system that must be supported and strengthened. With Minister Giuli and with Parliament we have allocated 44 million to help the editorial chain and open new bookstores for young people, especially where they are not there ».
The votes have reserved a surprise: in the challenge for second place Elisabetta Rasy prevailed with 133 votes for ‘lost this sea’ (Rizzoli) in which the scene are a dreamer father and a great friend and writer, Raffaele La Capria. While Nadia Terranova, for the second finalist time to the witch, had to settle for third place for ‘What I know of you’ (Guanda), 117 votes, in which he investigates the Venera great -grandmother who lived the experience of the asylum for 11 days in 1928. Fourth Paolo Nori, with ‘I close the door and scream’ (Mondadori), 103 votes, in which the poems of Raffaello Baldini become a story and not very distant in fifth place (they were ex aequina in Cinquina) the anesthesiologist with the debut Inventory of what remains after the forest burns (Terrarossa), 99 votes, in which it tells the mourning entering the intimacy of the characters through the footprints left on objects.
Fan at the tables on the boiling evening at the Nymphaeum who saw Filippi Timi in five theatrical moments taken by the incipit of the finalist books, accompanied by two exceptional musicians, Roberto Angelini and Rodrigo D’Erasmo, and Anna Foglietta in an solo in which he recalled Pasolini 50 years after his death and the theme that unites the five books, the family, concluded with an appeal to “free Palestine”. And still an interview with Anna Foa, winner of the wizard award with the suicide of Israel (Laterza). At the Rizzoli table, Dacia Maraini, contrary to the transfer to Cinecittà of the prize. «Nymphaeum has a very important tradition, it should not be changed. Here is a large literary community. It was nice that the minister came ». While Elisabetta Rasy comments: «As the Nymphaeum Cinecittà is also a beautiful place. Because they compete, you could do a little and a little ». Donatella di Pietrantonio underlines that “the decision is up to the Bellonci Foundation”. The total of the votes expressed is 646, equal to 92% of those entitled.