Andrea Bajani won the Strega Book Prize overnight with his novel L'anniversario (The Anniversary).
    Rome-born Bajani, who debuted in 2005 with Cordiali saluti (Warm Greetings) and first found fame with his 2007 novel Se consideri le colpe (If You Weigh the Guilt), was the hot bookies' favourite for Italy's premier literary award.
    The winning entry got 194 votes, handily ahead of Elisabetta Rasy's 'Perduto è questo mare', a tale of a dreamer father and his friend the great writer Raffaele La Capria, which got 133.
    "I have been publishing books for twenty-two years," said the winner.
    "My gratitude to those who believed in me, the readers, the publishers.
    "This year is the 60th anniversary of Feltrinelli who believed in me" said a visibly moved Bajani, sipping from a bottle of Strega.
    "Literature is contradicting the official version" added the writer, dressed in a minimalist suit of light linen considering the heat even in the midnight hour in the Italian capital.
    Already a winner of the Premio Strega Giovani 2025 and a finalist for the Premio Strega and Campiello in 2021 with Il libro delle case (The Book of Houses), Bajani lays bare in L'anniversario, between novel and autofiction, the deadly intrigues of an oppressive family with a double key: "on the one hand the story of domestic hell, on the other the detachment of those who think 'I can tell my version of all this," said the Roman author.
    "The idea of ;;escape is always within the idea of ;;guilt" said Bajani.
    The name Strega, which means witch in Italian, refers to the prize's sponsors, producers of the famed yellow liqueur of the same name.
    This year's edition was overshadowed by a row with Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli who said he had not been sent the competing books and practically not invited, sparking the organisers' response that h e had chosen to stay away and attend an event in Germany instead.
    The government said Thursday it is considering moving one of the high point of Italy's literary year from its longtime base at Rome's Villa Giulia to the historic film studios of Cinecittà.
   
   

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