With his first novel, “My stupid intentions” (Sellerio) , 101 votes, the young Bernardo Zannoni triumphed by surprise at the Campiello Prize 2022.
"It is my first published work and it has already made a mess. I did not expect it, I have not even prepared a speech. Thanks to those who believed in me, I come from nowhere, I turned the corner just yesterday", he commented Zannoni, 27, from Sarzana, on the stage of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.
In the book, the orphaned stone marten Archy manages to gain conscience: "Conscience is a damnation, an advantage, but you have to save what can be saved before disappearing. I started the book at the age of 21. I wanted to do a novel about a fox, martens are a bit like foxes, but less known and so I thought: 'why not a stone marten? It's more original, less obvious.'
The winner was "a 27-year-old boy who began writing a book at the age of 21 about an animal in a country that is known not to be a country for young people", the words of the president of the Literary Jury Walter Veltroni in the edition in which Campiello's 60th anniversary was celebrated.
In second place "The fig leaf. Stories of trees, women, men" (Einaudi) by Antonio Pascale, 54 votes, in which the writer relies on plants and dedicates each chapter to a tree to tell the desire to live and love , strength, compassion. At the third Elena Stancanelli with “Il tuffatore” (The ship of Theseus) , 46 votes, in which she tells the parable of Raul Gardini who becomes the symbol of a disappeared generation.
For the occasion, “Il Campiello dei Campielli” arrived, which saw the chosen book “La Tregua” by Primo Levi, winner of the first edition in 1963, "for the important civil testimony and for the extraordinary literary quality of its texts".
Levi, who also won in 1982 with "If not now when", is the author "in which there is the spirit of the story of Campiello which is freedom" said Veltroni and in the video link the testimony of the senator was exciting. Liliana Segre : "I've always said the same words as Levi: 'I don't forget anything, I try to remember the faces, the words, the colors. I don't forgive because I can't forgive a similar crime. But if I had hated I would have become like mine. torturers , but I'm different from them, I choose love ".
(Unioneonline / D)