Strega Prize to Bajani after tensions with Mic

(by Mauretta Capuano) The super favorite Andrea Bajani wins with 194 votes for 'The Anniversary' (Feltrinelli) the Strega Prize 2025 (even though the rush had written it on the scoreboard wrong number of 187 votes), a final night after a eve of tensions between the organizers and the government that thinks to the move to Cinecittà for the main literary prize Italian in 2026, the 80th anniversary. "There are twenty-two years that I publish books. Gratitude to those who believed in me, the readers, the publishers. This year is the 60th anniversary of the Feltrinelli who believed in me" said Bajani, emotionally drinking from the bottle of Strega liqueur. "Literature is contradict the official version" added the writer in minimal dress. The evening of July 3, in which the absence of the minister stands out of Culture Alessandro Giuli for institutional commitments to Berlin, "it could be the last final evening of the Award Witch at the Nymphaeum of Villa Giulia in Rome. For next year - sources from the Roman College explain - the Ministry of Culture reserves the right to offer the Bellonci Foundation the seat of Cinecittà". Already winner of the 2025 Strega Giovani Prize and already a finalist at the Strega and Campiello Prizes in 2021 with The Book of Houses (Feltrinelli), Bajani lays bare in The Anniversary, between novel and autofiction, the deadly intrigues of a family oppressive with a double step: "on one side the story of domestic hell, on the other hand the detachment of those who think 'of all this I can say my version. The idea of ​​escape is always within the idea of ​​guilt" says Bajani. On the award ceremony at the Nymphaeum of the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome the aftermath of the controversies also had an impact eve between the organizers and Giuli who had underlined "of not having received any book" and had joked: "from Amico of Sunday I have become the enemy of Sunday" by doing reference to the jury of the award. But the director of the Bellonci Foundation, Stefano Petrocchi, before the live broadcast on Rai3, hosted by Pino Strabioli, reassured: "Today we have sent the finalists' books to Minister Giuli and from Berlin he thanked through his office." The President of the Chamber's Culture Commission was present and National Head of Culture and Innovation of Fratelli of Italy, Federico Mollicone who says: "the Strega Prize is a high and popular celebration. Here is the entire editorial system that must be supported and strengthened. With Minister Giuli and with Parliament has allocated 44 million to help the publishing chain and open new bookstores for young people, especially where there aren't any." The voting brought a surprise: in the challenge for the Elisabetta Rasy prevailed in second place with 133 votes for 'Lost is this sea' (Rizzoli) in which the scene is held by a dreamer father and a great friend and writer, Raffaele La Capria. While Nadia Terranova, finalist for the second time at the Strega, she had to settle for third place for 'What I know about you' (Guanda), 117 votes, in which he investigates the great-grandmother Venera who lived the experience of the mental asylum for 11 days in 1928. Fourth Paolo Nori, with 'I close the door and scream' (Mondadori), 103 votes, in which the poems of Raffaello Baldini become a story and not far away in fifth place (they were (ex aequo in the top five) the debuting anesthetist Michele Ruol with Inventory of what remains after the forest burns (TerraRossa), 99 votes, in which he tells of mourning while entering in the intimacy of the characters through the footprints left on objects. Fans at the tables in the hot evening at the Ninfeo which has seen Filippi Timi in five theatrical moments taken from the incipit of the finalist books, accompanied by two musicians exceptional, Roberto Angelini and Rodrigo D'Erasmo, and Anna Foglietta in a solo in which he remembered Pasolini at 50 years old from death and the theme that unites the five books, the family, concluded with an appeal for a "free Palestine". And again an interview with Anna Foa, winner of the Strega Prize Non-fiction with The Suicide of Israel (Laterza). At the table Rizzoli, Dacia Maraini, against the transfer to Cinecittà of the award. "The Ninfeo has a very important tradition, it does not go changed. There is a great literary community here. It was nice that the minister came". While Elisabetta Rasy comments: "as the Ninfeo Cinecittà is also a beautiful place. Why go there? competition, you could do a bit of both". Donatella Di Pietrantonio underlines that "the decision is up to the Foundation "Bellonci". The total number of votes cast is 646, equal to 92% of those who have right.