The Nuoro writer Marcello Fois, during a public ceremony scheduled in Bitti, Saturday 12 October at 5:30 pm in the Ariston Cinema, will receive the “Giorgio Asproni National Award” promoted by the Foundation dedicated to the illustrious Sardinian politician, theologian and journalist, of Bitti origins.

The Award, inaugurated this year, will be given annually to a figure from the cultural, political, institutional, economic-social world, who has distinguished himself with his work for a set of values attributable to those that inspired the thought and the entire activity of Giorgio Asproni, with particular, but not exclusive, reference to Sardinia. The speeches are planned by the mayor, Giuseppe Ciccolini, and the members of the jury, which includes the president of the Idimo Corte Foundation, the historians Fulvio Conti (University of Florence) and Marco Pignotti (University of Cagliari) and Roberto Pianta (school principal in Cagliari). Then literary echoes with the poet Vanessa Aroff Podda who will read some passages. Marcello Fois will be given a work made by the local ceramic artisans of Terrapintada. The journalist Fabio Marcello will moderate the evening.

Giorgio Asproni, a member of the Historical Left from 1848 to 1876, was a brilliant journalist, a contributor to many Italian, Spanish and American newspapers, and the director of several daily newspapers. He was a friend of Mazzini, Garibaldi and Cattaneo, with whom he shared sincere democratic aspirations and the commitment to creating a free and independent Italy. A staunch promoter of the economic and cultural development of Sardinia and the South, Asproni worked constantly to affirm republican principles and to ensure that they were, together with the ideals of secularism and autonomy, the common heritage of the Italian nation.