The winner of the 2015 Strega Prize, Nicola Lagioia, was invited to an evening in Athens. It was organised by the Italian Institute of Culture with Megaron Plus cultural programme organiser. Athens was chosen because one of the committees concurring in awarding the prestigious literary award is there, and each year, the winner is invited to meet the Greek public and promote the translation of the award-winning work with local publishing houses. The evening was presented and moderated by Stella Priovolou, professor emeritus of the Department of Italian Language and Literature of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The event was hosted in the Dimitris Mitropoulos room of the Athens Concert Hall, and held in Italian with simultaneous translation.
Nicola Lagioia, born in Bari in 1973, made his debut in 2001 with the novel “Tre sistemi per sbarazzarsi di Tolstoj (senza risparmiare se stessi)” (“Three systems for getting rid of Tolstoy [without sparing yourselves])” published by Minimum Fax. In 2004 Einaudi published his novel “Occidente per principianti” (“The West for Beginners”), while in 2005 Einaudi Stile Libero released “2005 dopo Cristo (“2005 AD”), a novel written with Francesco Pacifico, Francesco Longo and Christian Raimo, under the collective name of Babette Factory. He has also published short stories.
Nicola Lagioia invited to Athens by the Italian Institute of Culture and Megaron Plus
He is head of Italian fiction for Minimum Fax and one of the founders of the literary blog “minimum&moralia”. He writes for the magazine “Internazionale” and serves on the editorial board of the magazine “Lo Straniero”, edited by Goffredo Fofi. Since 2010, he has been one of the presenters of Pagine3, a daily review of the cultural pages broadcast by Rai Radio 3. His novel “Riportando tutto a casa”, (“Bringing It All Back Home”), published by Einaudi, won the SIAE (writers’ syndicate) prize, the Vittorini Prize, the Volponi prize and the 2010 Viareggio fiction prize. Einaudi has also published “La Ferocia” (“Ferocity”) with which he won the Strega prize. The Kastaniotis Publishing House commissioned Abi Raikou to translate the novel into Greek. It should be out by the end of the year.
