Sandro Veronesi won, with 200 votes, his second Strega Prize with 'Il colibrì' (The Snow of Theseus) given immediately for superfavorite and always in the lead during the count.
"I am thinking of my family, my children, my wife, my brothers. I am thinking of my editor, Elisabetta Sgarbi, Umberto Eco who has been so generous to found this publishing house. I am thinking of the friends who have me claimed, who voted for the book. I'm thinking of the new man, who is then a woman. All the new people who are there and all the ships at sea "said Veronesi, already a winner of the Strega Prize in 2006 with Calm Chaos became a film by Antonello Grimaldi with Nanni Moretti.
Veronesi wanted to dedicate the victory to all these things, in this memorable edition of the Witch, with a sestina and two Einaudi titles ex aequo in the running, at the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia semi desert, without the general public of the past years.
About eighty people sat at the tables, on a hot evening that saw the return of the jury table and the legendary blackboard where the marks were marked on the balcony of the Nymphaeum, as in the ten editions starting from 1953. To win the Witch twice so far it had only happened to Paolo Volponi, in 1965 with La worldwide machine and in 1991 with La strada per Roma.
"Only loving, only knowing matters, not having loved, not having known. People change, people change. There is a different landscape, digital natives who now read, who have a different attitude and this one also perceives it as fair inside it seems that time has stopped. I don't remember anything about the first time, I read it in the books that there was a victory "underlined Veronesi of his second victory.
It is the story of a whole life, that of Marco Carrera, the protagonist of Veronesi's novel, affected a little more than normal by painful things. Colibri 'descends powerfully to the roots of that energy which annihilates and revives. Going back and forth in time, he tells us about loss and love, destiny and choices, the search for oneself, psychoanalysis, dreams, symbols with many suggestions and literary quotations. At the center are the family, with all its mythologies.
No battle with Gianrico Carofiglio, as was predicted on the eve, that for 'The measure of time' (Einaudi) in which we find a different Guido Guerrieri in a judicial drama and in a training novel, he had 132, and immediately went to shake hands with Veronesi embraced by Elisabetta Sgarbi, his wife and all friends including Dori Ghezzi sitting at the table of La nave di Teseo. A hug also with Jonthan Bazzi, complete with Valentino sequins, mentioned in the book by Veronesi, at the bottom of the sestine formed with his repechage, with 50 votes.
And in third place another Einaudi title, 'Almarina', 86 votes, by Valeria Parrella in aqua green long dress, the only woman in the final of this edition, with the story of the meeting between Elisabetta Maiorano, professor of mathematics in the juvenile prison of Nisida, childless widow and her pupil Almarina, a young Romanian girl raped. And the former number one of Mondadori Gian Arturo Ferrari is in fourth place with 'Italian boy', 70 votes, his debut book at 76, in which he mixes real and invented events in an autobiographical formation novel. And in the fifth place Daniele Mencarelli, with 67 votes, already happy with the 2020 Young Witch Award, for 'Everything asks for salvation' (Mondadori).
At the tables in the garden, also the Councilor for Culture and Deputy Mayor of Rome Luca Bergamo. Antonio Scurati, winner of the 2020 Witch Prize, presided over the seat. Out of 660 voters, 605 expressed their preferences.
"It has a nice effect because a month ago we wouldn't have expected to do such an event. It gives me the idea of a new beginning with perhaps more awareness" says Carofiglio.
"Here you feel that the pandemic has passed and it is right to feel why we have suffered," said Parrella. "It seems more human to me. It was really a bedlam. People are now talking to each other, not pushed. It is paradoxical to see oneself masked. There is a strange calm" comments Sgarbi. "I've been more used to empty things for three months. It doesn't make much of an impression on me," underlines Veronesi.
