Niccolò Ammaniti, Paola Barbato, and Dario Ferrari for Fiction and Edoardo Camurri, Adriana Cavarero, and Andrea Moro for Nonfiction: these are the finalists of the seventh edition of the Costa Smeralda Award.

The names were revealed today during the press conference presenting the event, held at the Rovati Foundation headquarters in Milan. Renzo Persico and Mario Ferraro, president and vice president of the Costa Smeralda Consortium, and the award's artistic director, Stefano Salis, were present. The winners of the International Prize, awarded to Spanish writer Javier Cercas, and the Special Prize, which this year will go to Giuseppe Lai, a native of Ozieri, former Commander of the Amerigo Vespucci and a Senior Officer in the Italian Navy with the rank of Captain, were also announced.

The awards ceremony is scheduled for April 18th at the Porto Cervo Conference Center, where the 2026 winners in the Fiction and Nonfiction categories will be announced. The final three winners are the result of a careful selection process by a jury led by Salis and composed of Lina Bolzoni, Marcello Fois, Elena Loewenthal, and Chiara Valerio. In the Fiction category, Niccolò Ammaniti is competing with "The Guardian," Paola Barbato with the noir "Cuore capovolto," and Dario Ferrari with "L'idiota di famiglia," while in the Nonfiction category, Edoardo Camurri is competing with "La vita che brucia," Adriana Cavarero with "Il canto delle sirene," and Andrea Moro with "Lucrezio and the bat with blue eyes."

"In 2026, the Costa Smeralda will once again be among the leading promoters of high-quality culture in Sardinia: beyond the confines of individual genres, the Award focuses on the power of dialogue," Salis emphasizes. "Being able to engage with the European perspective of Javier Cercas, the thinking of some of Italy's most important authors, and the nautical wisdom of Giuseppe Lai is proof that we are building something rare: a dialogue that begins in Sardinia and reaches out to the world."