Strega 2025 prize: Andrea Bajani wins with a novel dedicated to the breakdown of a son with his parents (but he feels that Geppi Cucciari is missing)

There are editions of Witch award In which you know who will win even before the announcement of the Cinquina who will play the final, and that of 2025 was one of these. In the publishing environment they were a bit certain, in fact, that to triumph at the nymphaeum of Villa Giulia the night of July 3 was Andrea Bajani with The anniversarypublished by Feltrinelli, and so it was. Through a very intimate and ferocious novel in which the narrative ego celebrates the tenth anniversary of the day on which he chose to break the thread that bound him to his parentschoosing not to turn the word to them and to exclude them from their lives, Bajani – already winner of the Strega Giovani Award – raises the bottle full of yellowish liqueur witch in the air while the photographers ordered him to drink a sip for the ritual photos.

His is a clear and predictable triumph: 187 votes With the blessing of a great one like Emmanuel Carrère, who defined Bajani’s voice in the novel as “scandalously calm”, considering the urgency of breaking a family relationship due to toxicity and authoritarianisms that have slowly and inexorably excavated in the heart of the narrative ego. Second place for Elisabetta Rasy and his Lost this sea is (Rizzoli), focused on a woman exiled by Naples of the 1950s marked by the loss of the father and the friendship with the writer Raffaele La Capria; third for Nadia Terranovain his second participation in the witch with What I know of you (Guanda) linked to a woman who, once he became a mother, I feel the echo of an great -grandmother interned in a Missina’s asylum; fourth for Paolo Nori that, with I close the door and scream (Mondadori), pays homage to the dialectal poet Raffaello Baldini by intertwining his poems with different fragments of his life; And finally, fifth for the anesthesiologist Michele Ruol and his debut, Inventory of what remains after the forest burns (Red Land), also with the figure of two parents in the center, but struggling with the loss of children.

The evening, brilliantly conducted by Pino Strabioli and embellished with the presence of the actor Filippo Timi, who during the live broadcast on Rai3 recited the incipit of the five finalist novels, and the actress Anna leafletwhich gave a wonderful monologue dedicated to the value of books and literature in the hyper -synexist world and torn by the war and pain of today (complete with a hymn to free Palestine inserted in the final), a smooth row and without particular flicks, Also considered the absence of Geppi Cucciari Which, in recent years, has led to the Strega prize what has been missing for too long: the ability to laugh intelligently of the ivory towers of Italian publishing in order to send it a little.