Talks, conversations, meetings with authors, book presentations, exhibitions and also a special philatelic postmark for the twenty-fifth edition of the Elio Vittorini National Literary Award which this year coincides with the sixtieth anniversary of the death of the Syracuse writer. It will be a rich Victorian Week that will begin on Monday 7 September and precede the award ceremony on Saturday 12 at the Antico Mercato of Ortigia.
The Award commission, chaired by Professor Antonio Di Grado, has chosen the three authors who will compete for the victory: this year it is an all-female trio, which includes Erica Donzella from Catania with «Non offendere» (Kalòs), Rosa Matteucci with «Cartagloria» (Adelphi) and Nadeesha Uyangoda with «Acqua rossa» (Einaudi). The winner for the First Work section was the Gazzetta journalist Anna Mallamo, author of the award-winning novel “Col dark me la vedo io” (Einaudi), set in Reggio Calabria in the early 1980s.
The Arnaldo Lombardi Prize for independent publishing, dedicated to the memory of one of the “fathers” of the Vittorini Prize, went instead to the Calabrian publishing house Rubbettino.
To designate, among the three finalists, the winner of the XXV Vittorini Prize, the Readers’ Jury will now enter the field – made up of readers recommended by the public libraries of Syracuse, the city’s bookshops and the Dante Alighieri society – which will cumulatively express a vote which will be added to the individual one of each member of the commission.
The Victorian Week, which involves various spaces in Syracuse, has become a highly anticipated event, which carries forward the memory of the Syracuse writer and his works. The Week will start on Monday with the preview presentation of Enzo Papa’s essay «Vittorini, Guttuso and illustrated conversation» (Le Fate). On Tuesday at the Elio Vittorini museum library, the artistic-documentary exhibition «The restless freedom. Traveling with Elio Vittorini and Rosa Quasimodo between escapes and border stays”, curated by Livio Caruso and created thanks to a collaboration between Sicilian and Gorizia cultural realities where the exhibition will then arrive from 13 to 29 September next year. On Wednesday 9th the inauguration of the philatelic exhibition dedicated to the 60th anniversary of Vittorini’s death in collaboration with the Sicilian Collectors’ Union, which in addition to setting up the exhibition dedicated to Sicilian authors of the twentieth century, will take care of the issue, on Friday 11th September, of the special philatelic postmark «Homage to Elio Vittorini». This will be followed by a talk show on the theme «From Americana to the Polytechnic to Illustrated Conversation» with Salvo Sequenza, Teresella Celesti, Annalisa Stancanelli, Carmelo Maiorca, Aldo Mantineo.
The long-awaited «Vittorini Trial» returns to the Urban Center on Thursday, one of the most characteristic moments of the event, on «Il caso di Conversazione illustrata». President will be Stefano Vittorini Giuliano; the prosecution will be represented by Edoardo Esposito and the defense by Maria Rizzatolli. Friday preview presentation of Edoardo Esposito’s book «The risk of translating: the Vittorini Mondadori correspondence». This will be followed by the presentation of the finalist works and the winning first work and interviews with the authors. The latter is a moment eagerly awaited by the public who will have the opportunity to meet the four writers and hear from them about their relationship with literary creation.
Finally, on Saturday 12th, at 8pm at the Antico Mercato of Ortigia, the award ceremony for the Vittorini literary prize and the Arnaldo Lombardi prize for independent publishing will take place (the evening will be hosted by the secretary of the prize, the journalist Aldo Mantineo), promoted by the Vittorini-Quasimodo cultural association and by the culture department of the city of Syracuse in collaboration with the Inda Foundation and with the patronage of the department of Cultural heritage and the Sicilian identity of the Region.
