The Importance of Being “Strega”

"It is a book that tells of pain and heals it, because it is written by a woman who knows the miracle of words and the blood of wounds". This is how writer and psychoanalyst Vittorio Lingiardi described the novel that won the seventy-eighth edition of the Strega Prize last January: L'età fragile by Donatella Di Pietrantonio. Together with Stefano Petrocchi, director of the Bellonci Foundation, the author will explore the 'fragile ages' of human existence, the right words to describe them and the role of the Strega Prize, which has been a cornerstone of contemporary Italian literature since 1947. This prestigious award acts as both a compass, guiding new literary directions, and a pantheon honouring distinguished authors (from Flaiano and Pavese to Moravia and Bassani, Morante and Buzzati, Ginzburg and Ortese, Levi and Eco, up to the voices of our time). It also serves as a significant commercial force, influencing national book sales and boosting translations abroad.