literary
Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
prize that is awarded annually to Italian writers. The prize originated among patrons of
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
's ''Bagutta Ristorante''. The writer
Riccardo Bacchelli
Riccardo Bacchelli (; 19 April 1891 – 8 October 1985) was an Italian writer. In 1927 he was one of the founders of the review ''La Ronda'' and Bagutta Prize for literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature eight times.
Care ...
discovered the restaurant and soon he regularly gathered numerous friends who would dine there together and discuss books. They began charging fines to the person who arrived last to an appointed meal, or who failed to appear.
At first the funds so collected were spent on miscellaneous items, but on 11 November 1927 the group decided to use the funds to create a literary prize. They named it after the restaurant.
Other directors of the prize include Emilio Tadini,
Mario Soldati
Mario Soldati (17 November 1906 – 19 June 1999) was an cinema of Italy, Italian writer and film director. In 1954 he won the Strega Prize for ''Lettere da Capri.'' He directed several works adapted from novels, and worked with leading Ital ...
Vincenzo Cardarelli
Vincenzo Cardarelli, pseudonym of Nazareno Caldarelli (1 May 1887 – 18 June 1959) was an Italian poet and journalist.
Cardarelli was born in Corneto, Lazio
it, Laziale
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, populati ...
: ''Il sole a picco'' (Mondadori)
*1930 Gino Rocca: ''Gli ultimi furono i primi'' (Treves)
*1931 Giovanni Titta Rosa: ''Il varco nel muro'' (Carabba)
*1932 Leonida Rèpaci: ''Storia dei fratelli Rupe'' (Ceschina)
*1933 Raul Radice: ''Vita comica di Corinna'' (Ceschina)
*1934
Carlo Emilio Gadda
Carlo Emilio Gadda (; November 14, 1893 – May 21, 1973) was an Italian writer and poet. He belongs to the tradition of the language innovators, writers that played with the somewhat stiff standard pre-war Italian language, and added elements o ...
Vitaliano Brancati
Vitaliano Brancati (; 24 July 1907 – 25 September 1954) was an Italian novelist, dramatist, poet and screenwriter.
Biography
Born in Pachino, Syracuse, Brancati studied in Catania, where he graduated in letters and where he spent the most pa ...
: ''Il bell'Antonio'' (Bompiani)
*1951
Indro Montanelli
Indro Alessandro Raffaello Schizogene Montanelli (; 22 April 1909 – 22 July 2001) was an Italian journalist, historian and writer. He was one of the fifty World Press Freedom Heroes according to the International Press Institute.
A voluntee ...
: ''Pantheon minore'' (Longanesi)
*1952 Francesco Serantini: ''L'osteria del gatto parlante'' (Garzanti)
*1953 Leonardo Borghese: ''Primo amore'' (Garzanti)
*1954
Giuseppe Marotta
Giuseppe "Beppe" Marotta (born 25 March 1957) is an Italian football executive who is currently the CEO for sport of Italian football club Internazionale. In 2014, he was inducted into the Italian Football Hall of Fame.
Early career
In 1978, at ...
: ''Coraggio, guardiano'' (Bompiani)
*1955
Alfonso Gatto
Alfonso Gatto (17 July 1909 – 8 March 1976) was an Italian writer. Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, he is one of the foremost Italian poets of the 20th century and a major exponent of hermetic poetry.
Biography
Gatto stud ...
: ''La forza degli occhi'' Mondadori)
*1956
Giuseppe Lanza
Giuseppe Lanza, Duke of Camastra, was a 17th-century Sicilian nobleman who oversaw the reconstruction of many Sicilian towns and cities following the earthquake of 1693.
He was created 1st Duke of Camastra, and Prince of Santo Stefano. He mar ...
: ''Rosso sul lago'' (Cappelli)
*1957 Pier Angelo Soldini: ''Sole e bandiere'' (Ceschina)
*1958 Lorenzo Montano: ''A passo d'uomo'' (Rebellato)
*1959
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the ''Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the '' Cosmicomi ...
: ''Racconti'' (Einaudi)
*1960
** Enrico Emanuelli: ''Uno di New York'' (Mondadori)
**
Antonio Barolini
Antonio Barolini was an Italian poet and novelist who was born in Vicenza on 29 May 1910, and died in Rome on 21 January 1971. His stories, translated into English by his wife, Helen Barolini, appeared in ''The New Yorker'' and then were collecte ...
: ''Elegie di Croton'', (Feltrinelli) (''ex aequo'')
*1961 Giorgio Vigolo: ''Le notti romane'' (Bompiani)
*1962 Giuseppe Dessì: ''Il dissertore'' (Feltrinelli)
*1963 Ottiero Ottieri: ''La linea gotica'' (Bompiani)
*1964
Tommaso Landolfi
Tommaso Landolfi (9 August 1908 – 8 July 1979) was an Italian writer, translator and literary critic. His numerous grotesque tales and novels, sometimes on the border of speculative fiction, science fiction and realism, place him in a unique a ...
: ''Rien va'' (Vallecchi)
*1965
Biagio Marin
Biagio Marin (1891–1985) was a Venetian
poet, best known from his poems in the Venetian language, which had no literary tradition until then. In his writings he never obeyed rhetoric or poetics. He only employed a few hundred words for his po ...
: ''Il non tempo del mare'' (Mondadori)
*1966
Manlio Cancogni Manlio is a given name. Notable people with the given name include:
*Manlio Argueta (born 1935), Salvadoran writer, critic and novelist
*Manlio Bacigalupo (1908–1977), Italian football player and manager
*Manlio De Angelis (1935–2017), Italian ...
: ''La linea dei Tomori'' (Mondadori)
*1967
Primo Levi
Primo Michele Levi (; 31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987) was an Italian chemist, partisan, writer, and Jewish Holocaust survivor. He was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel. His best-known works ...
: ''Storie naturali'' (Einaudi)
*1968
Piero Chiara
Piero Chiara (March 23, 1913 – December 31, 1986) was an Italian writer.
He was born in Luino, on Lake Maggiore (northern Italy). His father Eugenio was from Resuttano, Sicily; his mother Virginia Maffei was from Comnago, a Piedmontese village ...
Anna Banti
Anna Banti (born Lucia Lopresti; 27 June 1895 – 2 September 1985) was an Italian writer, art historian, critic, and translator.
Life and works
Banti was born in Florence. In her youth she spent time in Rome, attending the University of R ...
: ''Je vous écris d'un pays lointain'' (Mondadori)
*1973
Sergio Solmi
Sergio Solmi (16 December 1899 – 7 October 1981) was an Italian poet, essayist and literary critic.
Born in Rieti, Solmi's studies mainly focused on French literature and on Italian contemporary literature. He released several collections of po ...
Mario Soldati
Mario Soldati (17 November 1906 – 19 June 1999) was an cinema of Italy, Italian writer and film director. In 1954 he won the Strega Prize for ''Lettere da Capri.'' He directed several works adapted from novels, and worked with leading Ital ...
: ''Lo specchio inclinato'' (Mondadori)
*1977
Sandro Penna
Sandro Penna (June 12, 1906 – January 21, 1977) was an Italian poet.
Biography
Born in Perugia, Penna lived in Rome for most of his life.
He never had a regular job, contributing to several newspapers and writing almost only poetry. His first ...
: ''Stranezze'' (Garzanti)
*1878
Carlo Cassola
Carlo Cassola (17 March 1917 – 29 January 1987) was an influential Italian novelist and essayist. His novel ''La Ragazza di Bube'' (1960), which received the Strega Prize, was adapted into a film of the same name by Luigi Comencini in 1963.
...
: ''L'uomo e il cane'' (Rizzoli)
*1979
Mario Rigoni Stern
Mario Rigoni Stern (1 November 1921 – 16 June 2008) was an Italian author and World War II veteran.Giovanni Macchia: ''L'angelo della notte'' (Rizzoli)
*1981
Pietro Citati
Pietro Citati (20 February 1930 – 28 July 2022) was an Italian writer and literary critic.
He was born in Florence. He wrote critical biographies of Goethe, Alexander the Great, Kafka and Marcel Proust as well as a short memoir on his thirty-ye ...
: ''Breve vita di Katherine Mansfield'' (Rizzoli)
*1982
Vittorio Sereni
Vittorio Sereni (27 July 1913 – 10 February 1983) was an Italian poet, author, editor and translator. His poetry frequently addressed the themes of 20th-century Italian history, such as Fascism, Italy's military defeat in World War II, and its ...
: ''Il musicante di Saint-Merry'' (Einaudi)
*1983
Giorgio Bassani
Giorgio Bassani (4 March 1916 – 13 April 2000) was an Italian novelist, poet, essayist, editor, and international intellectual.
Biography
Bassani was born in Bologna into a prosperous Jewish family of Ferrara, where he spent his childhood wit ...
: ''In rima e senza'' (Mondadori)
*1984
Natalia Ginzburg
Natalia Ginzburg (, ; ; 14 July 1916 – 7 October 1991) was an Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories and essays, fo ...
: ''La famiglia Manzoni'' (Einaudi)
*1985
Francesca Duranti
Francesca Duranti (born January 2, 1935) is an Italian writer.
Personal life and education
She was born Francesca Rossi in Genoa and received a law degree from the University of Pisa. She married Enrico Magnini in 1956; they had one child and s ...
: ''La casa sul lago della luna'' (Rizzoli)
*1986
Leonardo Sciascia
Leonardo Sciascia (; 8 January 1921 – 20 November 1989) was an Italian writer, novelist, essayist, playwright, and politician. Some of his works have been made into films, including '' Porte Aperte'' (1990; ''Open Doors''), '' Cadaveri Eccellen ...
: ''Cronachette'' (Sellerio)
*1987
Claudio Magris
Claudio Magris (born 10 April 1939) is an Italian scholar, translator and writer. He was a senator for Friuli-Venezia Giulia from 1994 to 1996.
Life
Magris graduated from the University of Turin, where he studied German studies, and has been a ...
: ''Danubio'' (Garzanti)
*1988
Luciano Erba
Luciano Erba (18 September 1922 – 3 August 2010) was an Italian poet, literary critic and translator.
Life and career
Born in Milan, in 1947 Erba graduated in French literature at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. A member of the so- ...
: ''Il tranviere metafisico'' (Scheiwiller)
*1989
Luigi Meneghello Luigi Meneghello (16 February 1922 – 26 June 2007) was an Italian contemporary writer and scholar.
Biography
Luigi Meneghello was born in Malo, a small town in the countryside near Vicenza, on 16 February 1922.Giulio and Laura Lepschy, ‘Luigi M ...
: ''Bau-sète!'' (Rizzoli)
*1990
Fleur Jaeggy
Fleur Jaeggy (born 31 July 1940) is a Swiss author who writes in Italian. ''The'' ''Times Literary Supplement'' named ''Proleterka'' as a Best Book of the Year upon its US publication, and her ''Sweet Days of Discipline'' won the Premio Bagut ...
: ''I beati anni del castigo'' (Adelphi)
*1991 Livio Garzanti: ''La fiera navigante'' (Garzanti)
*1992
Giorgio Bocca
Giorgio Valentino Bocca (28 August 1920 – 25 December 2011) was an Italian essayist and journalist, also known for his participation in the World War II partisan movement.
Biography
Bocca was born in Cuneo, Piedmont, the son of teachers, an ...
Alberto Arbasino
Nino Alberto Arbasino (22 January 1930 – 22 March 2020) was an Italian writer, essayist, and politician.
Among the protagonists of Group 63, his literary production has ranged from novels (Fratelli d'Italia of 1963, rewritten in 1976 and 199 ...
: ''Fratelli d'Italia'' (Adelphi)
*1995
Daniele Del Giudice
Daniele Del Giudice (11 January 1949 – 2 September 2021) was an Italian author and lecturer. He lived in Venice, where he taught theatrical literature at the University Iuav of Venice.
Biography
Born in Rome in 1949, Del Giudice researched av ...
Giovanni Raboni
Giovanni Raboni (22 January 1932 – 16 September 2004) was an Italian poet, translator and literary critic.
Biography
Raboni was born in Milan, the second son of Giuseppe, a clerk at Milan commune, and Matilde Sommariva. In October 1942, after ...
: ''Tutte le poesie (1951–1993)'' (Garzanti)
*1999
Fabio Carpi
Fabio Carpi (19 January 1925 – 26 December 2018) was an Italian director, screenwriter, and author.
Life and career
Born in Milan, in the 1940s Carpi began his career as a film critic for the newspapers ''Libera Stampa'' and ''L'Unità''. In ...
: ''Patchwork'' (Bollate Boringhieri)
*2000
**
Andrea Zanzotto
Andrea Zanzotto (10 October 1921 – 18 October 2011) was an Italian poet.
Biography
Andrea Zanzotto was born in Pieve di Soligo (province of Treviso, Veneto), Italy to Giovanni and Carmela Bernardi.
His father, Giovanni (born 18 November ...
: ''Le poesie e prose scelte'' (Mondadori)
** Mariano Bargellini: ''Mus utopicus'' (Gallino)
*2001 Serena Vitale: ''La casa di ghiaccio. Venti piccole storie russe'' (Mondadori)
*2002
**
Roberto Calasso
Roberto Calasso (30 May 1941 – 28 July 2021) was an Italian writer and publisher. Apart from his mother tongue, Calasso was fluent in French, English, Spanish, German, Latin and ancient Greek. He also studied Sanskrit. He has been called "a l ...
: ''La letteratura e gli dei'' (Adelphi)
**
Giorgio Orelli
Giorgio Orelli (May 25, 1921 – November 10, 2013) was an Italian-speaking Swiss poet, writer and translator.
He was born in Airolo in the canton of Ticino and was educated at the University of Fribourg, where he was a student of the Roman p ...
: ''Il collo dell'anitra'' (Garzanti)
*2003
** Michele Mari: ''Tutto il ferro della Tour Eiffel'' (Einaudi)
**
Edoardo Sanguineti
Edoardo Sanguineti (9 December 1930 – 18 May 2010) was a Genoa, Genoese poet, writer and academic, universally considered one of the major Italian authors of the second half of the twentieth century.
Biography
During the 1960s he was a leader ...
: ''Il gatto lupesco'' (Feltrinelli)
**
Eva Cantarella
Eva Cantarella (born 1936 in Rome) is an Italian classicist. She is professor of Roman law and ancient Greek law at the University of Milan, and has served as Dean of the Law School at the University of Camerino.
Biography
Cantarella is known for ...
: ''Itaca'' (Feltrinelli)
*2004 Franco Cordero: ''Le strane regole del sig. B'' (Garzanti)
*2005 Rosetta Loy: ''Nero è l'albero dei ricordi, azzurra l'aria'' (Einaudi)
*2006
** Filippo Tuena: ''Le variazioni di Reinach'' (Rizzoli)
** Eugenio Borgna: ''L'attesa e la speranza'' (Feltrinelli)
*2007
Alessandro Spina
Alessandro Spina (1927–2013) was the pen name of Basili Shafik Khouzam. Born in Benghazi into a family of Syrian Maronites that originally hailed from Aleppo, Syria, Khouzam was educated in Milan and published his first story in Nuovi Argomenti. ...
Melania Mazzucco
Melania Gaia Mazzucco (born 6 October 1966) is an Italian author. She is a recipient of the Strega Prize and Bagutta Prize.
Education and career
Mazzucco graduated from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in 1990 and the Sapienza Universit ...
: ''La lunga attesa dell'angelo'' (Rizzoli)
*2010
Corrado Stajano Corrado may refer to:
Places
*Anticoli Corrado, comune in the City of Rome
*Monte Vidon Corrado, comune in the Province of Fermo People Given name
*See Corrado (given name) Surname
*Andrea Corrado (1873-1963), Italian ship owner
*Andrea Di Corrado ...
: ''La città degli untori'' (Garzanti)
*2011 Andrea Bajani: ''Ogni Promessa'' (MacLehose Press for the English edition, ''Every Promise'')
*2012
** Gianfranco Calligarich: ''Privati abissi'' (Fazi editore)
** Giovanni Mariotti: ''Il bene viene dai morti'' (Edizioni Et Al.)
*2013
** Antonella Tarpino: ''Spaesati. Luoghi dell'Italia in abbandono tra memoria e futuro'' (Einaudi)
*2014
** Maurizio Cucchi: ''Malaspina'' (Mondadori)
**
Valerio Magrelli
Valerio Magrelli (born 1957, Rome) is an Italian poet.
He graduated in philosophy at the University of Rome and is an expert in French literature which he has taught and teaches at University of Pisa and University of Cassino. He debuted as an a ...
: ''Geologia di un padre'' (Einaudi)
*2015
** Sandro Veronesi: ''Terre rare'' (Bompiani)
*2016
** Paolo Di Stefano: ''Ogni altra vita. Storia di italiani non illustri'' (Il Saggiatore)
**
Paolo Maurensig
Paolo Maurensig (26 March 1943 – 29 May 2021) was an Italian novelist, best known for his book ''Canone inverso'' (1996), a complex tale of a violin and its owners.
Biography
Maurensig was born in Gorizia, northern Italy.
Before becoming a n ...
Helena Janeczek
Helena Janeczek (born 1964) is an Italian novelist of Polish Jewish origin.
Life and career
Helena Janeczek was born in Munich, Germany, from a Polish family of Jews who survived the Holocaust. She moved to Italy when she was 19 and has lived the ...
: ''La ragazza con la Leica'' (Guanda)
*2019
** Marco Balzano: ''Resto qui'' (Einaudi)
*2020
**
Enrico Deaglio
Enrico Deaglio (born 11 April 1947) is an Italian journalist, writer and TV presenter.
Biography
Deaglio was born in Turin, where he graduated in medicine (June 1971) and worked in the Mauriziano Hospital.
In the mid-1970s, he started his journa ...
: ''La bomba'' (Feltrinelli)
*2021
** Giorgio Fontana: ''Prima di noi'' (Sellerio)
*2022
**
Benedetta Craveri
Adele Benedetta Craveri (born 23 September 1942) is an Italian literary critic, academic and writer.
She was born in Rome, the daughter of the historian and political activist Raimondo Craveri and the writer and translator Elena Croce (herself th ...
: ''La contessa'' (Adelphi)
Prizewinners first book
*1987 Franca Grisoni: ''La böba'' (San Marco dei Giustiniani)
*1991 Bruno Arpaia: ''I forastieri'' (Leonardo)
*1992
** Antonio Franchini: ''Camerati. Quattro novelle su come diventare grandi'' (Leonardo)
** Filippo Tuena: ''Lo sguardo della paura'' (Leonardo)
*1994 Laura Bosio: ''I dimenticati'' (Feltrinelli)
*1995 Piero Meldini: ''L'avvocata delle vertigini'' (Adelphi)
*1996
** Carola Susani: ''Il libro di Teresa'' (Giunti)
**
Alessandro Gennari
Alessandro is both a given name and a surname, the Italian form of the name Alexander. Notable people with the name include:
People with the given name Alessandro
* Alessandro Allori (1535–1607), Italian portrait painter
* Alessandro Baricco ...
Helena Janeczek
Helena Janeczek (born 1964) is an Italian novelist of Polish Jewish origin.
Life and career
Helena Janeczek was born in Munich, Germany, from a Polish family of Jews who survived the Holocaust. She moved to Italy when she was 19 and has lived the ...
: ''Lezioni di tenebra'' (Fazi)
** Andrea Kerbaker: ''Fotogrammi'' (Scheiwiller)
*1999
** Tommaso Giartosio: ''Doppio Ritratto'' (Fazi)
** Rosa Matteucci: ''Lourdes'' (Adelphi)
*2000
** Mariano Bargellini: ''Mus utopicus'' (Gallino)
** Giovanni Chiara: ''L'agghiaccio'' (Marsilio)
*2001
** Silvia Di Natale: ''Kuraj'' (Feltrinelli)
** Luigi Guarnieri: ''L’atlante criminale. Vita scriteriata di Cesare Lombroso'' (Mondadori)
*2002 Paolo Maccari: ''Ospiti'' (Manni)
*2003 Giuseppe Curonici: ''L'interruzione del Parsifal dopo il primo atto'' (Interlinea)
*2004 Wanda Marasco: ''L'arciere d'infanzia'' (Manni)
*2005
Sandro Lombardi
Sandro Lombardi (born 12 July 1986) is a retired Swiss footballer.
Biography
Lombardi started his career at Grasshopper Club Zürich, and played for its reserve team at regional league. In 2009, he joined Italian '' Lega Pro Seconda Divisione'' ...
: ''Gli anni felici. Realtà e memoria nel lavoro dell'attore'' (Garzanti)
*2006 Ascanio Celestini: ''Storie di uno scemo di guerra'' (Einaudi)
*2007 Pierluigi Cappello: ''Assetto di volo'' (Crocetti)
*2008 Elena Varvello: ''L'economia delle cose'' (Fandango)
*2009 Guido Rampoldi: ''La mendicante azzurra'' (Feltrinelli)
*2010 Filippo Bologna: ''Come ho perso la guerra'' (Fandango)
*2011
** Alessio Torino: ''Undici decimi'' (Italic Pequod)
** Daria Colombo: ''Meglio dirselo'' (Rizzoli)
*2012 Marco Truzzi: ''Non ci sono pesci rossi nelle pozzanghere'' (Instar)
*2013 Laura Fidaleo: ''Dammi un posto tra gli angeli'' (Nottetempo)
*2014 Fabrizio Passanisi: ''Bert il mago'' (Nutrimenti)
*2015 Enrico Ragazzoni: ''Una parete sottile'' (Neri Pozza)
*2016
Nadia Terranova
Nadia Terranova (born 1 January 1978) is an Italian author.
Life and career
Born in Messina, Terranova graduated in philosophy at the University of Messina, and then got a doctorate in modern history at the University of Catania. In 2003 she mov ...
: ''Gli anni al contrario'' (Einaudi)
*2017 Giulia Caminito: ''La grande A'' (Giunti)
*2018 Roberto Venturini: ''Tutte le ragazze con una certa cultura hanno almeno un poster di un quadro di Schiele appeso in camera'' (SEM)
*2019 Marco Amerighi: ''Le nostre ore contate'' (Mondanori)
*2020 Jonathan Bazzi: ''Febbre''
*2021 Alessandro Valenti: ''Ho provato a morire e non ci sono riuscito'' (Blu Atlantide)
*2022 Bernardo Zannoni: ''I miei stupidi intenti'' (Sellerio)