… Le colpe dei padri

by Italian writer Alessandro Perissinotto. This book was runner-up for ” Premio Strega 2013″ and I was very lucky to meet  Alessandro when he came to Cork, last October.

The Premio Strega “Strega Prize” is the most prestigious Italian literary award. It has been awarded annually since 1947 for the best work of prose fiction by an Italian author.

 In 1944 Maria and Goffredo Bellonci started to host a literary salon at their home in Rome. These Sunday gatherings of writers, artists and intellectuals grew to include many of the most notable figures of Italian cultural life. The group became known as the Amici della Domenica, or ‘Sunday Friends’. In 1947 the Belloncis and Guido Alberti, owner of the firm which produces the Strega liqueur, decided to inaugurate a prize for fiction, the winner being chosen by the Sunday friends.

The activities of the Bellonci circle and the institution of the prize were seen as marking a tentative return to ‘normality’ in Italian cultural life: a feature of the reconstruction which followed the years of Fascism, war, occupation and liberation.

Watch this video and you’ll find  out more about the book