There are a total of 46 authors – nine of whom are competing in the special Opera Prima edition, reintroduced last year – from 26 different publishing houses who will compete for victory at the XXV Elio Vittorini National Literary Award. A particularly important edition also because it falls on the sixtieth anniversary of the death of the Syracuse writer. The announcement was made by the president of the Vittorini Quasimodo Cultural Association, Enzo Papa, during the meeting held at the Turin International Book Fair, in the stand of the Sicilian Region, together with the general secretary of the Aldo Mantineo Prize and Professor Sara Zappulla Muscarà, member of the evaluation commission. The VII edition of the Prize for independent publishing named in memory of Arnaldo Lombardi, “father” of the Vittorini Prize, was also presented.
This year the event will take place in Syracuse from 9 to 12 September: a Victorian Week whose common thread will be the “photo-text”: the image used – according to Vittorini’s intuition – not as a mere graphic and decorative element but as an expressive form that interacts with the text. The week will unfold between talks, public interviews with the finalist authors, the “Vittorini trial” and will culminate in the final ceremony with the proclamation of the winning work.
The judging commission, chaired by Professor Antonio Di Grado, will select the three finalist books by June. The votes of the Commission will be added to those expressed, cumulatively, by the popular jury of strong readers made up of readers recommended by the public libraries of Syracuse, by the city’s bookshops, by the Dante Alighieri Society and by other parts of Italy.
The Vittorini Award is promoted by the Vittorini – Quasimodo Cultural Association and by the Department of Culture of the City of Syracuse in collaboration with the INDA Foundation and with the patronage of the Sicilian Region – Department of Cultural Heritage and Sicilian Identity.