The Bridge Book Award

 

November 01, 2017

Please join us for a panel discussion in celebration of the third edition of “The Bridge” Book Award, with Eli Gottlieb, 2016 American fiction winner; the 2017 Italian winners, Andrea Inglese for fiction and Antonella Tarpino for nonfiction; and Maria Ida Gaeta, Director of the Casa delle Letterature, Rome, acting as moderator.

The Bridge Book Award is the creation of the Casa delle Letterature of the Municipality of Rome, the American Initiative for Italian Culture (AIFIC), and the U.S. Embassy in Rome. It is designed to be a “bridge” connecting the two cultures—the Italian and the American—in order to promote knowledge of the most recent literary trends in the two countries. The award is conferred annually to four authors: one work of fiction recently published in Italy and one recently published in the United States; and to one work of nonfiction recently published in Italy and the United States. The award consists of a sum to cover the translation cost into the opposite language, a monetary prize for the winners, and a sum to cover travel costs. Every effort is made to find a publisher for the book in the country of non-origin. This third edition of the prize has also been sustained by other Italian institutions, including the Center for the Book and for Reading of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage (Centro per il libro e la lettura, CEPELL), and the Federation of Italian Writers (Federazione Unitaria Italiana Scrittori, FUIS).

The American winners for 2017 are Jennifer Haigh for fiction and Anna Harwell Celenza for nonfiction. Haigh’s fifth novel Heat and Light, winner of The Bridge Award in 2017 for fiction, earned a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was named a Best Book of 2016 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and National Public Radio. Anna Harwell Celenza is the Thomas E. Caestecker Professor of Music at Georgetown University. Her most recent book, Jazz Italian Style: From Its Origins in New Orleans to Fascist Italy and Sinatra., is the winner of The Bridge Award in 2017 for nonfiction.

Program schedule:

6pm – registration and exhibition viewing

6:20pm – conversation program begins, followed by Q&A

7:30pm – conversation program concludes; exhibition viewing

8pm – CIMA closes

 

 

For speakers’ biographies:

Andrea Inglese is a translator and literary activist, living and working in Paris. He received a PhD in Comparative Literature and he has held teaching positions in Contemporary Italian Literature at the University of Paris III. Author of eight books of poetry and prose, Inglese is a member of the literary blog Nazione Indiana and is also on the editorial committee of “alfabeta2”. He is the curator of Descrizione del mondo [Description of the World], a collective project that brought together, through an exhibition and website, authors from various countries interested in literary and artistic modes of describing the world. His first novel, Parigi è un desiderio [Paris is a desire], was published by Ponte alle Grazie in 2016 and he is the winner of The Bridge Award in 2017 for fiction.

Antonella Tarpino is a historian, essayist, and editor. She writes for the magazine Lo Straniero and the Huffington Post. Author of history books for the upper secondary schools including Codice storia and La scena del tempo, Tarpino has researched the transformation of everyday objects and landscapes, particularly abandoned places that persist in the memory of the Bel Paese. Tarpino dedicated a trilogy to this subject, consisting of Geografie della memoria, Spaesati, and Il paesaggio fragile. In 2013, Spaesati won the 86th edition of Bagutta Prize—the first and only time in which a book of reportage has been so recognized. Her latest book, Il paesaggio fragile: L’ Italia vista dai margini (Einaudi, 2016), is the winner of The Bridge Award in 2017 for nonfiction. 

Maria Ida Gaeta, director of the Casa Delle Letterature in Rome, specializes in the philosophy of language. After working for several years as a researcher, she dedicated much of her subsequent career to the promotion of books, working at cultural institutions such as the Sistema Bibliotecario Cittadino in Rome and the Italian Ministry of Culture. In 2000, she designed and supervised the construction of Rome’s House of Literature, the most important municipal institution dedicated to Italian and foreign contemporary literature. In addition to directing the House of Literature, Gaeta is also the curator and artistic director of the International Literature Festival, which takes place annually in Rome between May and June.

Eli Gottlieb has worked as a Senior Editor of Elle Magazine and taught American Literature as a Lecturer at the University of Padova. He is a winner of the American Academy in Rome’s Rome Prize. His first novel, The Boy Who Went Away, won the McKitterick Prize of the British Society of Authors and has been published in 14 countries. His fourth and most recent novel, Best Boy, was published by Liveright in 2015 and was the 2016 winner of The Bridge book award for fiction. The book has been now been translated into Italian and published by Minimum Fax. 

Missed the event? Watch the video here!