If 2020 will also be remembered as the year of closure, the final ceremony of the Campiello Prize overturns the pattern that has distinguished it in recent years (it was held at the Teatro La Fenice) and moves to Piazza San Marco. A difficult but not impossible year for this prestigious literary prize wanted by the industrialists of the Veneto with the aim of carving out a space for Venetian entrepreneurship in the Italian cultural world. Since 1963 the Campiello Prize has been held in symbolic places of the lagoon city, from the Island of San Giorgio to the courtyard of the Doge's Palace and the Fenice Theater. This year the stage of the final evening, to be held Saturday September 5, will be for the first time in Piazza San Marco. A debut that wants to be a tribute to Venice. An opportunity to share the value of this Award, its authors and its books with readers and people.
The books, in fact, are the real protagonists of this important cultural event. The famous five was chosen by a jury of writers who selected and voted them among the more than 200 admitted to the competition by the technical committee. Now it's up to 300 readers scattered throughout the country to decide who the Prize will go to. Jurors change every year and their names remain secret until the final night. The ballot will take place live as usual. The Campiello Prize in Piazza San Marco will be conducted by the journalist Cristina Parodi.
The five books competing for the final evening
But let's let the books of the five do the talking. With Japanese steps (Einaudi), of the poetess Patrizia Cavalli, are sixteen short stories, or rather prose poems, which the author herself defines as "Like a collection of poems, except that, in my opinion, it is more beautiful than poems". Writer Sandro Frizziero, who in a certain sense plays at home having been born in Chioggia, not far from Venice, was chosen for his Submersion (Fazi Editore). The protagonist is an elderly fisherman who, having almost reached the end of his life, has to deal "with the evil he has suffered and with what he has done", explains the author. The story is set on an island in the southern lagoon.
Trallumoscuro. Ballad for a country at sunset (Writers Giunti) by Francesco Guccini, is dedicated to the land of the songwriter, the town of Pavana between Tuscany and Emilia. History of an ancient world, of a peasant civilization that no longer exists. Trallumescuro, a magical and poetic term, indicates the moment of transition from the light of day to the darkness of the night, as they say in the author's parts. Remus Rapino, with his Life, death and miracles of Bonfiglio Liborio (Minimum Fax) tells the Italy of the twentieth century through the strange language of a madman from the village, Bonfiglio Liborio, who lived it the last century from 1926 (the year of his birth) to 2010. The Campiello five closes The charm of the sunfish (Bollati Boringhieri) by Hades Zeno, master of ceremonies of the Crematorium Temple of Turin as well as the protagonist of his book, macabre and unusual history.
Alessandro Baricco receives the Il Campiello Foundation award 2020
The leitmotif of the final evening of 5 September will be the concept of the square, in a physical and metaphorical sense. An evening-story conceived by the director, screenwriter and television author Massimo Martelli. Piazza as a meeting place after months of closure, a space that citizens want to regain possession of. Here then is the living room of St. Mark's Square. Outdoors, to simplify the problems related to important events in times of Coronavirus.
With a symbolic value, because Piazza is also a space for openness and meeting between citizens. Hence the initiative, born this year, “With your library at Campiello in Piazza”. The libraries of Venice and Mestre will be able to give their readers the opportunity to attend the final evening. During the ceremony Alessandro Baricco will receive the Il Campiello Foundation Award 2020 which was awarded to him in recognition of his career as a writer and intellectual. The evening will be live streaming.
