It was all the fault of Antonio Scurati and Paolo Giordano if some venerable writers did not land in the coveted dozen of the 76th Strega Prize, and consequently not even in the “enlarged five” just announced at the Roman Theater of Benevento. In fact, for the first time in the history of the two ex-equo prize and the recognition of the small publisher raises the number of candidates to seven. In Mario Desiati’s “Spatriati” vote he prevails with 244 votes. According to Claudio Piersanti with “Quel cursed Vronskij” (Rizzoli), 178 votes, third Marco Amerighi with “Randagi” (Bollati Boringhieri) 175 votes, fourth Veronica Raimo with “Niente di vero” (Einaudi), 169 votes. Ex equo with 168 votes Fabio Bacà with “Nova” (Adelphi) and Alessandra Carati with “And then we’ll be safe” (Mondadori). Fished out “Nina sull’argine” (Minimum Fax), 103 votes, by Veronica Galletta.
The whispers coming from the Amici della Domenica suggest the a priori exclusion of some older authors. If Roberto Pazzi with his new Hotel Padreterno (2021) was unable to approach the glorious drink, it was not a debacle. At least not in full.
The Prize has always combined the crowning of a career with the need for a renewal of tradition. But today it seems that Bellonci’s original will has been denied in favor of youthful choices, almost as if the writing is not young by itself when it is tall and casual. Just think of Bufalino’s debut as a sixty-one year old, in 1981, with Diceria dell’untore and his unpredictable climb to Campiello.
Scandals and paradoxes
On the other hand, the echo of the Witch has often depended on controversies, scandals and paradoxes that have spiced up the ceremony for more than half a century. to name a few, Pazzi has bet on the sacred without ceasing to feed his hunger for epos and never aligning himself with theological doctrine, but freely manipulating the patrimony of Christian beliefs: the Bible remains an immense mine for those like him who are not afraid of being blasphemous. Likewise he does not share the blindness of our own micro autobiography, much less the adherence to newsstand news of those he defines as “chasing customers, in the manner of Raimo and Desiati”. In spite of her denial, however, Valeria Raimo was awarded the Strega Giovani 2022 just last night thanks to very young readers. With 96 preferences out of 573 votes cast, Niente di vero (Einaudi) was the most voted novel by a jury of girls and boys between the ages of 16 and 18, coming from over one hundred upper secondary schools distributed in Italy and abroad, including Berlin, Brussels and Paris.
Aesthetics first, then ethics
«That fate is inevitable to associate him with the elderly man in a camel coat, pashmina around the neck, black Borsalino, dovetail shoes, yellow gloves. The snow beard, a sharp nose, bags under the eyes “; although impeccable, the protagonist of Hotel Padreterno is very different from another spectator aware of the cupio dissolvi set in Rome, the rampant and resigned Jep Gambardella di Sorrentino. In these pages Roberto Pazzi touches the extreme limit of the fantastic genre and relates it to the evidence of reality: Giovanni Eterno decides to return to earth since the Italians are the people who disobey his commandment “grow and multiply”, which renounces to the future to confine oneself to the present. After having taken up residence in the Livilla pension in the Pirandello style, between Via Nazionale and Piazza della Repubblica, the old God enters the daily life of those he meets with cordiality and delicacy. The dramaturgy of the characters and the abysmal but never marshy dialogues embody in the protagonist what anyone would like to know, that is, if God can really hide himself among human beings and love them so much as to put himself under the yoke of time and its deadly drift. Unlike Christ, who according to tradition was conceived to know and suffer human limitations through the very members of him, Eternal comes into the world paradoxically, suffering from amnesia and having never been born.