Premio Strega

Strega 2024 · Shortlist

The Little I Knew

Chi dice e chi tace

Chiara Valerio · 46 when first published

Novel · 276 pages · Crime, Love

AIAI-generated summary:In the seaside town of Scauri, the elegant, elusive Vittoria, who arrived in the 1970s with a girl who is not her daughter, is found dead in her bath. Lea, the town lawyer, refuses to accept it as an accident.

Strega 2023 · Shortlist

Your Little Matter

Dove non mi hai portata

Maria Grazia Calandrone · 58 when first published

Novel · 247 pages · Autofiction, Family, Historical

AIAI-generated summary:A poet reconstructs the story of her biological parents and their tragic end, from rural Molise to the outskirts of Milan in the boom years and to Rome.

Strega 2022 · Shortlist

Once We Are Safe

E poi saremo salvi

Alessandra Carati · 46 when first published

Novel · 239 pages · Migration, War, Family

AIAI-generated summary:Aida and her Bosnian family flee the war and reach Italy, where they must rebuild their lives: a domineering father, a mother who hides her love and a brother who falls ill.

Strega 2022 · Shortlist

Lost on Me

Niente di vero

Veronica Raimo · 44 when first published

Novel · 224 pages · Family, Autofiction

AIAI-generated summary:A woman takes apart her own Italian family, in a flat where new walls and rooms keep appearing where there is no space, with irony and without any comforting rhetoric.

Strega 2021 · Shortlist

The Book of Homes

Il libro delle case

Andrea Bajani · 46 when first published

Novel · 268 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:A man known only as 'I' is told through the houses he has passed through, as a newborn, son, lover, intruder and father, each keeping the memory of who he was there.

Strega 2021 · Shortlist

A Sister's Story

Borgo Sud

Donatella Di Pietrantonio · 58 when first published

Novel · 176 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:On a long night journey to reach Adriana, her rebellious, reckless sister, a woman looks back on their bond and on the reluctant mother who wounded them both.

Strega 2021 · Shortlist

Lost Bread

Il pane perduto

Edith Bruck · 90 when first published

Novel · 126 pages · War, Autofiction

AIAI-generated summary:A woman who survived deportation as a girl goes back into the depths of memory, from the hell her persecutors prepared to the life she rebuilt afterwards.

Strega 2021 · Shortlist

The Lake's Water Is Never Sweet

L’acqua del lago non è mai dolce

Giulia Caminito · 33 when first published

Novel · 297 pages · Coming of age, Family

AIAI-generated summary:Gaia grows up in a proletarian family ruled by her strong-willed mother, Antonia, who moves them from the edge of Rome to the lakeside town of Anguillara, where Gaia's shame and anger harden into violence.

Strega 2020 · Shortlist

Everything Calls for Salvation

Tutto chiede salvezza

Daniele Mencarelli · 46 when first published

Novel · 176 pages · Autofiction

AIAI-generated summary:June 1994, during the World Cup: after a violent outburst, twenty-year-old Daniele is committed for a week to a psychiatric ward, where he shares a room with five men on the margins of the world.

Strega 2020 · Shortlist

The Measure of Time

La misura del tempo

Gianrico Carofiglio · 58 when first published

Novel · 248 pages · Crime · Guido Guerrieri, book 6

AIAI-generated summary:The lawyer Guido Guerrieri is visited by Lorenza, a dazzling girl he once loved, now worn down by the years. Her son is in prison for murder, and despite his doubts Guerrieri takes on the appeal.

Strega 2020 · Shortlist

Fever

Febbre

Jonathan Bazzi · 34 when first published

Novel · 327 pages · Autofiction, Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:In January 2016 a thirty-one-year-old man gets a fever that will not go away. Waiting for a diagnosis, he goes back to his childhood in Rozzano, the tough outskirts of Milan, as a stammering, gay, bookish boy.

Strega 2020 · Shortlist

Almarina

Almarina

Valeria Parrella · 45 when first published

Novel · 123 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:Elisabetta teaches maths at the juvenile prison on the island of Nisida, off Naples. Each morning she leaves her thoughts in a locker. Then a new pupil arrives, a Romanian girl named Almarina.

Strega 2019 · Shortlist

Strangers I Know

La straniera

Claudia Durastanti · 35 when first published

Novel · 304 pages · Autofiction, Family

AIAI-generated summary:Born to two deaf parents, a girl is taken from New York to a small village in Basilicata, then grows up and keeps moving, to Rome and London, piecing together a family whose story is one of bodies and words.

Strega 2019 · Shortlist

Fidelity

Fedeltà

Marco Missiroli · 38 when first published

Novel · 256 pages · Love

AIAI-generated summary:Carlo and Margherita call it 'the misunderstanding': the doubt that cracks their marriage after Carlo is seen in a university bathroom with a student. She felt unwell and he helped her, he says, and the student confirms it.

Strega 2019 · Shortlist

Farewell, Ghosts

Addio fantasmi

Nadia Terranova · 40 when first published

Novel · 224 pages · Family, Autofiction

AIAI-generated summary:A woman returns to her childhood home in Messina, which her mother is selling, and is confronted with the memory of her father, who disappeared years ago and whose body was never found.

Strega 2018 · Shortlist

Tonight Is Already Tomorrow

Questa sera è già domani

Lia Levi · 86 when first published

Novel · 224 pages · Historical, Family, Migration

AIAI-generated summary:Genoa, the years of the racial laws: a Jewish family with a son who is a frustrated prodigy, a bitter mother and a wise but hesitant father must decide whether to stay or to flee, and where.

Strega 2018 · Shortlist

I'm Staying Here

Resto qui

Marco Balzano · 40 when first published

Novel · 224 pages · Historical, Family, War

AIAI-generated summary:In Curon, a South Tyrolean village, the teacher Trina defies the Fascists who ban German, follows her deserter husband into the mountains and writes to her vanished daughter, as a dam threatens to drown the valley.

Strega 2015 · Shortlist

The Story of the Lost Child

Storia della bambina perduta

Elena Ferrante

Novel · 480 pages · Family, Coming of age · L'amica geniale, book 4

AIAI-generated summary:Elena, now an established writer, separated and with two daughters, returns to Naples for a youthful love, while her friend Lila, who never left the neighbourhood, has become its charismatic leader and a computer entrepreneur.

Also: International Booker 2016 shortlist

Strega 2015 · Shortlist

The Breaking of a Wave

Chi manda le onde

Fabio Genovesi · 41 when first published

Novel · 471 pages · Family

AIAI-generated summary:On the off-season coast of Versilia, Luna, an albino girl who sees with her imagination, her surfer brother Luca and their mother Serena, who raised them alone, are thrown off course by a sudden blow of fate.

Strega 2014 · Shortlist

Life in Peacetime

La vita in tempo di pace

Francesco Pecoraro · 68 when first published

Novel · 664 pages · Historical, Politics

AIAI-generated summary:On 29 May 2015, a disillusioned sixty-nine-year-old engineer flies home from Egypt, where he works on a synthetic replacement for the dying coral reef. On the flight his mind travels back through seventy years of Italian life.

Strega 2014 · Shortlist

Don't Tell Me You're Afraid

Non dirmi che hai paura

Giuseppe Catozzella · 38 when first published

Novel · 250 pages · Migration, War, Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:Samia, a girl from Mogadishu with running in her blood, trains at night in an empty stadium and dreams of the Olympics, while Somalia sinks ever deeper into war and religious extremism.

Strega 2012 · Shortlist

Something Written

Qualcosa di scritto

Emanuele Trevi · 48 when first published

Novel · 246 pages · Autofiction

AIAI-generated summary:Rome, early 1990s: a cynical, naive young writer takes a job at the Pier Paolo Pasolini archive, ruled by the irascible actress Laura Betti, who behaves as if possessed by the dead poet.

Strega 2012 · Shortlist

The Silence of the Wave

Il silenzio dell’onda

Gianrico Carofiglio · 50 when first published

Novel · 294 pages · Crime

AIAI-generated summary:Twice a week a former undercover officer walks across Rome to see a psychoanalyst, often in silence. Memories surface of surfing with his father and of years spent among corruption and betrayal.

Strega 2012 · Shortlist

The Time in Between

Nel tempo di mezzo

Marcello Fois · 52 when first published

Novel · 256 pages · Historical, Family, Love

AIAI-generated summary:In 1943, the year of hunger and malaria, Vincenzo Chironi sets foot in Sardinia for the first time, carrying only a document with his name. In Nuoro his grandfather, a blacksmith, and his aunt Marianna are waiting for him.

Strega 2011 · Shortlist

Discovery of the World

La scoperta del mondo

Luciana Castellina · 82 when first published

Nonfiction · 194 pages · Politics, Coming of age, War

AIAI-generated summary:In July 1943 a Roman schoolgirl's tennis match with Mussolini's daughter is cut short by the dictator's arrest. Her diary from fourteen to eighteen follows her path through war and liberation to the Communist Party.

Strega 2011 · Shortlist

A Life Apart

La vita accanto

Mariapia Veladiano · 51 when first published

Novel · 186 pages · Family, Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:Rebecca is born so ugly that her mother never holds her and her father lets it happen. Raised by a beautiful aunt and a tearful nanny, she has perfect hands and a gift for the piano.

Strega 2010 · Shortlist

Everybody's Right

Hanno tutti ragione

Paolo Sorrentino · 40 when first published

Novel · 384 pages · Satire

AIAI-generated summary:Tony Pagoda, a Neapolitan crooner who has had talent, money and women, feels his world changing. After a short tour in Brazil he decides to disappear there, until years later someone offers a fortune to bring him back.

Strega 2010 · Shortlist

Swimming to Elba

Acciaio

Silvia Avallone · 26 when first published

Novel · 357 pages · Coming of age, Family

AIAI-generated summary:In the concrete blocks of Piombino, in sight of the steelworks and the island of Elba, inseparable thirteen-year-old friends Anna and Francesca test their power over boys, until Anna falls in love and Francesca feels betrayed.

Strega 2008 · Shortlist

I Hadn't Understood

Non avevo capito niente

Diego De Silva · 43 when first published

Novel · 368 pages · Crime, Satire

AIAI-generated summary:Vincenzo Malinconico, a Neapolitan lawyer who mostly pretends to work, is abandoned by his wife. Then he is assigned to defend a Camorra gravedigger, and the most beautiful woman in the courthouse falls for him.

Strega 2007 · Shortlist

The Innocent Days of War

I giorni innocenti della guerra

Mario Fortunato · 49 when first published

Novel · 240 pages · Historical, War, Love

AIAI-generated summary:In central Italy on the eve of the Second World War, a group of young people is caught up in what will become a civil war, while an English RAF pilot who loves Virginia Woolf and his close friend Edna, in bombed London, live parallel lives.

Strega 2007 · Shortlist

From the Land of the Moon

Mal di pietre

Milena Agus · 47 when first published

Novel · 144 pages · Love, Family

AIAI-generated summary:A passionate woman marries late, when she had stopped hoping, and meets the great love of her life by chance at a spa where she is being treated for kidney stones.

Strega 2006 · Shortlist

Fists

Pugni

Pietro Grossi · 28 when first published

Short stories · 157 pages · Coming of age

AIAI-generated summary:Three stories of boys facing initiation into life: a well-mannered boxer who must meet a deaf, poor champion in the ring, two brothers given a horse each by their father, and a friend who suddenly decides he is a monkey.

Strega 2006 · Shortlist

The Comrade from Milan

La ragazza del secolo scorso

Rossana Rossanda · 81 when first published

Nonfiction · 374 pages · Politics

AIAI-generated summary:Asked why she became a communist and why she still calls herself one, without a party or a post, a woman questions her memory and tells the story of her life, politics as a sentimental education.

Strega 2005 · Shortlist

For Grace Received

Per grazia ricevuta

Valeria Parrella · 31 when first published

Short stories · 105 pages · Crime

AIAI-generated summary:Stories set in a Naples far from folklore, among drug couriers and elegant art galleries, clandestine print shops and young graduates trying to escape the suffocating suburbs, about men and above all women chasing their desires.

Strega 2002 · Shortlist

The Librarians of Alexandria

Le bibliotecarie di Alessandria

Alessandra Lavagnino · 75 when first published

Novel · 313 pages · Family, Historical

AIAI-generated summary:The saga of a family from 1870 to the end of the Second World War, growing like a knotty tree from ancestors far apart in place and social rank, and narrowing at last to a childhood and early youth.