Certaldo, the Boccaccio Prize turns 40

Three days of events, starting from Friday 10 September and until Sunday 12, to celebrate the 40 years of the prestigious Boccaccio Prize. The Giovanni Boccaccio Literary Association has thus decided to celebrate the milestone, while respecting the anti-Covid regulations. And he has created a rich program of events, including film screenings and literary presentations, which will animate Certaldo (Florence) in three days with a high cultural rate.

Boccaccio 2021, the program

It starts on Friday 10 September, at 21.15 pm, with the screening of the film "The right distance ”by Carlo di Mazzacurati inside the Cinema Teatro Boccaccio (in the presence of Claudio Piersanti, winner of the Boccaccio Award 2021 and author of the screenplay for the film). On Saturday 11th, at 17.30 pm, the award ceremony will be held with the TV direction of Gabriele Gatti and with the conduct of the Rai journalist Adriana Pannitteri. During the evening, the actress Lucia Poli will interpret pages of the winning works of the award, will pay homage Dante Alighieri recalling his encounter with Ulysses in the Divine Comedy (on the occasion of 700 years of his birth). And he will give voice to the story X of the third day of Decameron. The conductor and cellist Attilia Kiyoko Cernitori will compose the soundtrack, with the background of Giovanni Ghizzani.

Saturday, however, will open much earlier. At 10.30, in the Parterre of Palazzo Pretorio, the presentation of "Small Decameron”By Alessandra Ulivieri, collection of the best short stories brought to the Boccaccio Prize. Finally, on Sunday 12 September, at 10.00, it will be presented in the same location “Solo” by Riccardo Nencini. This novel reconstructs the life of Giacomo Matteotti (the first true antagonist of Mussolini and Fascism) with the precision of the scholar and the creativity of the intellectual.

The winners

There are three winners of the Boccaccio 2021 Award: the writer and screenwriter Claudio Piersanti and the journalists Alessandra Sardoni e Francesca Mannocchi. "With this year's winners the jury awarded the language of the heart, the courage to talk about oneself, the clear communication of the truth, respect for those who read, watch, listen”Commented the president of the“ Giovanni Boccaccio ”Literary Association Simona Dei. Piersanti, born in 1954, won the Italian fiction award. His latest novel, "That cursed Vronsky", is the story of a man who does not believe in the end of a love.

Sardoni and Mannocchi instead won the Journalism Award. Chronicler, writer and documentary maker, Francesca Mannocchi collaborates with numerous national and international editorial offices. For some time he has been dealing with the issue of migration and the socio-political condition of the Middle East. His latest novel is the autobiographical “White is the color of damage”. Alessandra Sardoni, collaborator of Il Foglio, was the first woman to hold the role of president of the Parliamentary Press Association. In 2017 he published “Irresponsabili. Italian power and the claim of innocence ".

Featured photo taken from Wikipedia (credit Vignaccia76 - CC BY-SA 3.0)