Campiello Award, wins Remo Rapino. In Baricco the prize for the race

Venice – Remo Rapino surprisingly won the 58th edition of the Campiello Prize with 92 votes Life, death and miracles of Bonfiglio Liborio. In second place Sando Frizziero with Sommersione (Fazi). From Abruzzo, 69 years old, already professor of philosophy, Rapino in his novel covers part of Italian history. “It was a trip and meeting the candidate Guccini reminded me of the songs of my twenties”: were the words of the writer. In the book, published by minimal fax, the biography of a man considered the madman of the country is entered, but who has behind him an existence marked by the factory, asylum and the cruelty of war.

For the first time, the ceremony, directed by Cristina Parodi and dedicated to the memory of Philippe Daverio, was held in the open air in Piazza San Marco, in front of an audience of 1,400 guests. “Being here was not taken for granted. Perhaps we are in the most beautiful square in the world, tonight also a symbol of important values ​​such as cohesion, exchange, sociability, belonging,” said Enrico Carraro, president of Confindustria Veneto and the Il Campiello Foundation.

Selected by the jury of writers chaired by Paolo Mieli, the five finalist books were voted on by a popular jury made up of 300 readers. The rumors yesterday were given by favorites Francesco Guccini (finished fourth) and Patrizia Cavalli (ranked only fifth). But the surprising result nullified all predictions. Japanese steps (Einaudi), her first prose book, the poet Patrizia Cavalli composes a collection of autobiographical fragments that take the reader to the heart of the author, amid memories and portraits of a humanity described in a masterful language. In Dark trallum. Ballad for a country at sunset (Giunti), Francesco Guccini, who has just turned 80, returns to his roots, in the now depopulated town of Pàvana, bringing to light its inhabitants: “I have always written. I never thought of arriving in five. It shows I’ve done something, ‘said Guccini. Since I was a child I wanted to be a writer and then life really led me to do it, writing songs that were not just songs, but stories ”. And again: “For me it is more difficult to write a song because it must be concise and concentration is difficult, while with prose I go like a train.”

He is a violent misanthrope who does not love, but only possesses the protagonist of the book by the 33-year-old Venetian Sandro Frizziero, who finished second. Sommersione, published by Fazi, chronicles the decisive day of an 80-year-old hater living on a remote island that will soon be swallowed up by the waters. Monstrous, fantastic and crude is the book published by Bollati Boringhieri The Enchantment of the Sunfish by Ade Zeno, 41, born in Turin, who finished third, which narrates a deep conflict between a father who, to protect his daughter, was he finds himself in the service of a cannibal. The Lifetime Achievement Award from the Campiello Foundation was awarded to the writer Alessandro Baricco, who upon receiving the award said: “To imagine the future we need an intelligence different from that of the 20th century, such as that which is being born among our children. It can help us to overcome the mistakes of the past. But you have to have more courage “The future instead is represented by Michela Panichi, a twenty-year-old Neapolitan from Naples, winner of the Campiello Giovani with jellyfish, while Veronica Galletta was awarded in the first category of film for The norman islands (Italo Svevo).

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