TIRANA, Nov 26 /ATA/ – Carmine Abate, the Campiello-winning Arberesh writer, won the 24th edition of Italy’s Biella Literature and Industry Prize with his latest novel, “A happy country” (Un paese felice).

The jury said Abate was honoured “for his ability to give voice to his native Calabria, bringing to life the dramatic events in the ancient village of Eranova, where the beauty of the natural landscape is threatened by a proposed giant steel complex in Gioia Tauro. The community’s struggle, led by two young protagonists, against the ruling class of the time was ultimately lost, but the author interprets it as a paradigm of political choices that betray nature for profit.”

In the novel, Carmine Abate tells the true story of Erava, the “disappeared” town, which today no one talks about and which many, even Calabrians, do not know, composing together – as it has always been in its most authentic form and supported by a rigorous and at the same time resonant writing – a story of love and anger, of individual destinies and collective destiny, of “violence of memories” and, despite everything, of hope.

The Biella Prize recognises works of fiction or non-fiction by Italian authors or foreign writers translated into Italian. The jury, chaired by Alberto Sinigaglia, said Abate “paints the portrait of an Italy ready to surrender to the lure of wellbeing, fatally resigned before political and social emergencies, through a dense, vigorous and evocative prose.”

The Calabrian writer Carmine Abate, a prominent member of the Arbëresh-Albanian minority in southern Italy, has received several major literary awards, including the 50th Campiello Prize for his novel La collina del vento (The Wind Hill), published by Mondadori.

Since its establishment, the Biella Prize has honoured notable figures in Italian culture and literature, including Giorgio Bocca (2001), Ermanno Rea (2003), Raffaele Nigro (2005), Paolo Malaguti (2021), Antonio Franchini (2023) and Francesca Coin (2024).

/j.p/u.sh/