Mastercard Literature Award: here are the finalists

Matteo B. Bianchi con The life of those who remain (Mondadori), Dario Ferrari con Recess is over (Sellerio), Antonella Lattanzi con Things that aren’t told (Einaudi), Francesco Pecoraro con Only real is summer (Bridge to Graces), Francesco Piccolo con The beautiful confusion (Einaudi): these are the five finalists of the fourth edition of the Mastercard Literature Prize. The trio of finalist works for the Mastercard Literature Award for Newcomers includes Annalena Benini con Annalena (Einaudi), Maria Castellitto con Menodrama (Marsilio) e Simona Pedicini con Death by grace received (Fandango).

The winners will be announced during Più Libri Più Liberi (Fair of Small and Medium Publishing in Rome), Saturday 9 December at 6.00 pm in the Cometa room. The event will be visible in live streaming on the fair’s social channels (FB and IG). The awards ceremony will be hosted by Marco Lodoli, Sebastiano Nata e Valeria Parrella. Other members of the jury will be present, together with the finalists and representatives of the humanitarian organizations selected by the Award.

The finalists of the two sections of the Award were chosen by the jury made up of writers, critics and exponents of culture: Giulia Caminito, Andrea Carraro, Carlo D’Amicis, Donatella Di Cesare, Donatella Di Pietrantonio, Angelo Ferracuti, Maria Ida Gaeta, Filippo La Porta, Marco Lodoli (president), Carlo Lucarelli, Annamaria Malato, Sebastiano Nata, Valeria Parrella, Sandra Petrignani , Roberto Saviano, Gianluigi Simonetti, Antonio Spadaro, Emanuele Trevi e Sandro Veronesi.

“This year too the jury had to choose five titles among many notable novels, a sign that contemporary Italian literature always knows how to talk about private and collective hardships, and also some hypotheses of salvation – said Marco Lodoli, president of the jury – Even the beginnings are astonishing: three exemplary stories told with a profound sense of urgency and necessity.”

“It is exciting to see how in our Prize the solitary efforts of writers, to create works of value, are then transformed into collective actions that aim to support people in difficulty”, commented Sebastiano Nata, president of the steering committee.

The Mastercard Literature Prize was created both with the intention of giving recognition to the best Italian authors and of financing projects in the field of solidarity. The winner of the Mastercard Literature Prize will in fact be awarded a prize worth 10,000 euros and will then be given a further award to be allocated to humanitarian projects, worth 120,000 euros. The donation will be distributed among the humanitarian organizations proposed and financed by Fondazione 153: Busajo Ngo, Caritas, Operation Smile, Progetto Rwanda, Save the Children.

One third of the sum will go to the organization chosen by the winner, after consulting the other finalists, and the remaining two thirds will be distributed equally among the other organizations. The funded projects must aim above all at improving the health and educational conditions of girls and boys in poverty. Finally, the winner of the Mastercard Literature Award for Newcomers will be awarded a cash prize worth 3,000 euros.

In 2022 the winners were Gian Marco Griffi with the novel Mexican Railways (Laurana Editore) and, among the newcomers, Valentina Perniciaro with the book Everyone laughs in their own way (Rizzoli).