Strega Prize 2024: Donatella Di Pietrantonio wins (and also Geppi Cucciari)

To the Strega Prize Predictions, unlike the Oscars, almost always come true, which is why it shouldn’t surprise us too much that it was Donatella DiPietrantonio to win the 2024 edition thanks to The fragile agethe wonderful novel published by Einaudi that, starting from a news story, reflects on the fragility of a mother and a daughter. «I thank the Bellonci Foundation without which we would not be here; the Friends of Domenica who voted for me and did not vote for me; my companions on the journey for whom I already miss; my publisher as a group and as a team. I promise that I will use my voice, written and spoken, in defense of rights that my generation of women fought so hard for and that today I no longer take for granted”, says Donatella Di Pietrantonio from the stage tasting, as per tradition, a little of the Strega liqueur that has accompanied the Award since its inception. Di Pietrantonio, as fans know, also took part in the Award in 2021, when he was competing with the novel South Village also published by Einaudi, which this year wins the Strega Prize again as it already happened in 2022 with Mario Desiati and his Expatriates. Second place for Dario Voltolinithat with Winterpublished by La Nave di Teseo, has managed to tell an intimate and personal story such as the disappearance of a father through a compelling prose, followed by Chiara Valerio with Who speaks and who is silent (Sellerio), Raffaella Romagnolo with Fixing the Universe (Mondadori), Paul of Paul with Novel without humans (Feltrinelli) and Thomas Giartosio with Autobiogrammar (minimum fax).

Already winner of the Strega Giovani Prize, Di Pietrantonio told for the first time to Vanity Fair the difficulty encountered during the drafting of theFragile age («I have lived through a year marked by mourning and loss: completing this book required all my strength, and it’s beautiful to see that that effort has paid off”) but also the fear that, one day, he could develop the same disease that had struck his mother, that is Alzheimer’s. «The saddest thing I have seen in the many years of my mother’s illness it was the gradual reduction of autonomy and absolute dependence on others, increasingly serious and total. This is why, as soon as I have some time, I will make a living willwith the disposition not to go beyond a certain limit with the treatments”, Di Pietrantonio told us, focusing on a particularly evocative image of the disease such as that of crochet work. “What happened to my mother with the crochet could happen to me. At the beginning she did very accurate work that then, with the onset of the disease, became shapeless, like patches. I imagine that the same could happen to me with sentences, but I would prefer not to dwell on it now”.

Donatella Di Pietrantonio at the 2024 Strega PrizeFranco Origlia/Getty Images

As always, the evening was also brightened by the brilliant and never over the top conduction of Geppi Cucciari, this year escorted by Pine Strabioli. In just over an hour Cucciari delivers an infinite number of barbs at new Rai – from the reference to Strabioli’s first name, Pino, to the mention of Darkened, passing through a fleeting reference to the 2023 incident with the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano – proving to us that Geppi – and we will never tire of writing it – it’s a breath of fresh air for the Strega Prize because it is capable of reminding the intellectual world how important it is not to take oneself too seriously and to laugh at oneself. With irony, intelligence and culture – Geppi Cucciari seriously reads the novels nominated for the Strega, as demonstrated by the always timely questions she asks the writers in the running -, the presenter avoids the dusty ceremony for its own sake to opt for a fresh, sparkling rhythm, capable of sweeping away the dust with a smile and a well-placed jokeand that is why we hope that the Strega will never do without her. Neither with this government nor with the next ones that will arrive.