“In case you have forgotten, sir, I’m going to remind you: I’m your wife.” This is how the letter begins. This is what Vanda writes to her husband Aldo who ran away from home, leaving her in the grip of a storm of impotent rage and questions that do not have an answer. They get married young in the early Sixties, because of a desire of independence, but then the world around them changes, and now after many years they find that having a family is more a sign of backwardness rather than autonomy. Their marriage is a cracked vase that may shatter at the slightest touch. Or perhaps it has already shattered, and nobody is willing to acknowledge the fact. What are we willing to sacrifice in order not to feel trapped? And what do we lose when we choose to retrace our steps? Nothing is more radical than abandonment, but nothing is more tenacious of those invisible bonds that tie people to one another.
Thanks to the Prize the book has been translated in English by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, and published in the Unites States by Europa Editions with the title Ties

---

Domenico Starnone / Read Bio

This collection of letters, diaries, and memoirs offers readers personal accounts of the realities of the war. We are taken beyond the grandiosity of war propaganda into the daily lives of soldiers fighting in the trenches. Their letters are, in fact, part of an intimate communication with their families, a dialogue that the conflict threatens to interrupt. The book is a rich collection of documents from the Historical Museum of Trentino, long excluded from the mainstream historical narrative, because it was considered marginal and confrontational.
Thanks to the Prize the book has been translated in English by Siân Gibby and published in the Unites States by Bordighera Press with the title Intimate history of the Great War: letters, diaries, and memories from soldiers on the front.

---

Quinto Antonelli / Read Bio

She calls herself Ash, but that’s not her real name. She is a farmer’s faithful wife, but she has left her husband to don the uniform of a Union soldier in the Civil War. Neverhome tells the harrowing story of Ash Thompson during the battle for the South. Through bloodshed and hysteria and heartbreak, she becomes a hero, a folk legend, a madwoman and a traitor to the American cause. Laird Hunt’s dazzling new novel throws a light on the adventurous women who chose to fight instead of stay behind. It is also a mystery story: why did Ash leave and her husband stay? Why can she not return? What will she have to go through to make it back home? In gorgeous prose, Hunt’s rebellious young heroine fights her way through history, and back home to her husband, and finally into our hearts.
Thanks to the Prize the book has been translated in Italian by Milena Zemira Ciccimarra and published in Italy by La Nave di Teseo with the same title Neverhome.

---

Laird Hunt / Read Bio

Robert Pogue Harrison's book Juvenescence ranges brilliantly across cultures and history, tracing the ways that the spirits of youth and age have inflected each other from antiquity to the present. Drawing on the scientific concept of neotony, or the retention of juvenile characteristics through adulthood, and extending it into the cultural realm, Harrison argues that youth is essential for culture's innovative drive and flashes of genius. At the same time, however, youth is a luxury that requires the stability and wisdom of our elders and the institutions.
Thanks to the Prize the book has been translated in Italian by David Scaffei and published in Italy by Donzelli Editore with the title L’eta’ della giovinezza

---

Robert Pogue Harrison / Read Bio