“The Bridge” • Book Award

The Casa delle Letterature of Rome Municipality and the American Initiative for Italian Culture, together with the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, proudly present the first edition of the book award, “The Bridge”. The winners for this first edition are: for fiction, Domenico Starnone for his novel, Lacci (Einaudi); for non-fiction, Quinto Antonelli for his study, Storia intima della grande guerra (Donzelli). Panelists include: Professor Francesca Parmeggiani, Fordham University, and Giorgio van Straten, Director, Italian Cultural Institute of New York. Moderators include: Maria Ida Gaeta and Anthony Julian Tamburri. Also present will be Anna Lawton, founder and director, New Academia Publishing.

The Book Award “The Bridge” is aimed to reinforce the mutual understanding between Italy and the USA by exposing the reading public to the best works of fiction and nonfiction recently released in the two countries. The Award is meant to be a “bridge” that connects two cultures.

“The Bridge” is structured in two sections, an American section and an Italian section, similar and opposite to each other. In the USA, new literary works by Italian writers, both of fiction and nonfiction, are judged by an American jury, consisting of university professors of Italian and other cultural experts; in Italy new books by American writers, both of fiction and nonfiction, are judged by an Italian jury consisting of university professors of American literature and other cultural experts.

The sponsors, organizers and administrators of the Award are: Casa delle Letterature of the Rome Municipality (founder and curator of the two sections, and sponsor of the fiction category for the American section); the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF, main sponsor of the nonfiction category for the American ), the American Embassy in Rome(main sponsor of both the fiction and nonfiction categories for the Italian section), and the American Initiative for Italian Culture (AIFIC, sponsor and administrator in the USA) and FUIS organization, Federazione Unitaria Scrittori Italiani. The  Book Award “The Bridge” collaborates with the Embassy of Italy and Italian Cultural Institute in Washington, the American Academy in Rome, the Calandra Institute in New York, and the Italian Cultural Institute in New York.