Italy’s most famous witch is a literary one: the Premio Strega Award is the most coveted, awaited, discussed and gossiped about publishing award.
The total number of votes cast, 646 (92% of those entitled to vote), led to the victory of Andrea Bajani's novel, L'anniversario (Feltrinelli), with 194 votes.
Elisabetta Rasy, Perduto è questo mare (Rizzoli) followed, with 133 votes; Nadia Terranova, Quello che so di te (Guanda), with 117 votes; Paolo Nori, Chiudo la porta e urlo (Mondadori), with 103 votes; Michele Ruol, Inventario di quello che resta dopo che la foresta brucia (TerraRossa), with 99 votes.
“The aim of literature is to challenge the official version”, the author commented, with a profound and current consideration of patriarchy as the “official version” of our contemporary age. Andrea Bajani’s powerful novel addresses the taboo of family totalitarianism without sentimentalism.
Translation rights of the book were bought by Penguin Press (UK and Commonwealth), Coffee House (USA and Canada), Gallimard (France), Companhia das Letras (Brazil), Anagrama (Spain), Van Orschoot (Netherlands), Fraktura (Croatia), Periscopi (Catalonia), Ikaros (Greece), Humanitas (Romania), Magveto (Hungary), Penguin Random House (Portugal) and Nagel & Kimche / HarperCollins (Germany).