THE AWARD
Since 1927, the
Bagutta Prinze has been awarded every year. The only gap is a period between 1937 and
1947. Of course afterwards many other awards sprang up. Today there are over 1,300
literary awards in Italy. They all come from and after Bagutta. An
aristocratic prize, awarded in winter unlike all the others in Italy that come in summer,
it has no press office, no entry forms, no limitations as to literarygenre and not even
any regulations. The Bagutta Prize has gone to essays, novels, short stories, poetry,
memoirs and even an anthology of translations.
It is the only award that has resisted pressure from publishing houses and it survives
because it is simple and "unprofessional".
Even the electoral machinery is simple.
This simplicity has been sung by all the journalists that have covered it over the years.
It is the most precious quality of the Bagutta which is awarded "in the middle of
winter" as the journalist Giulio Nascinbeni wrote "when it's foggy or there's
snow in Milan and down the little street running parallel to Via Montenapoleone slip the
ghosts of Panzini and Pirandello, Baldini and Marotta and all the others, some famous,
some less well-known, who over the years have dined under the convivial drawings of Mario
Vellani Marchi" (Corriere d'Informazione, 15.01.77). |
