Strega Prize winner Andrea Bajani and the destruction of the family taboo with the anniversary at Libro Possibile

As has been a tradition for several years, thanks to the decade-long collaboration with the Maria and Goffredo Bellonci Foundation, Libro Possibile is dedicating an event to the Strega Prize. Last year, the event with Donatella Di Pietrantonio was a triumph, with her book L'età fragile topping the bestseller lists for months, even before the Strega Prize.

This year it was the turn of the winner of the 2025 edition , Andrea Bajani, with the novel L'anniversario. Stefano Petrocchi , director of the Bellonci Foundation, will host the event. The author, as he explained to the microphones in the box at the event, still doesn't realize what's happened with the Prize. Even though he's been writing for over 20 years, he wasn't used to such hype and notoriety. One thing is certain: "Winning the Strega Prize also means being careful with your words; it's a civic and literary responsibility."

Unlike family sagas, his is a novel that undermines the myth of the nuclear family. After ten years freed from the ravages of subtle and pervasive violence within the walls of his home, a son can finally turn around and tell the story of his unfortunate family and the taboo of this censorship "with the brutal force of the novel." And thus celebrate a heartbreaking anniversary: without accusing or saving, with a "scandalously calm" voice, as Emmanuel Carrère writes, emphasizing its implacable power.

The resulting story is a poignant and lucid portrait of a woman who loses everything to be something in her husband's eyes, while he keeps her and her children in a regime where possession and the demand for love are the bonds of a single knot. The airtight isolation to which he forces them is occasionally shattered by the ringing of a poorly tolerated telephone, by the occasional schoolmate, by a friend of their mother's who is quickly banished.

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