Strega Prize, Puglia is also there with TerraRossa: the publishing house of Bari. The five finalists revealed

Puglia has entered the prestigious finalist five of the 2025 Strega Prize thanks to the publishing house TerraRossa of Bari, which with Michele Ruol's novel Inventario di quel che resta dopo che la foresta brucia obtains an important recognition, bringing the voice of the South to the heart of contemporary Italian narrative. It is a significant achievement not only for the author, but also for an independent publishing reality that in recent years has distinguished itself for courage, quality and vision.

Five strong voices, five stories that cross time, memory, relationships and the ruins of contemporaneity: these are the five finalists of the 2025 Strega Prize, now in its 79th edition, announced this evening from the evocative stage of the Teatro Romano in Benevento and live on RaiPlay. Donatella Di Pietrantonio, winner of the 2024 edition, announced it at the end of an emotional count conducted by Stefano Coletta, who gave voice to the dozen writers in the competition through intense and passionate interviews.

Leading the finalists is the super favorite Andrea Bajani, who obtained 280 votes: L'anniversario (Feltrinelli), proposed by Emanuele Trevi, winner of the Strega in 2021, is first and foremost a novel of liberation, which undermines and unmasks the totalitarianism of the family. Nadia Terranova, with Quello che so di te (Guanda), 226 votes, nominated by Salvatore Silvano Nigro, stages the story of a daughter and a mother, with music as an emotional bridge and the identity mystery of a woman balanced between worlds and generations; an intimate and powerful novel about discovery and emotional legacy. Elisabetta Rasy, with Perduto è questo mare (Rizzoli), 205 votes, proposed by Giorgio Ficara, offers a refined and historically evocative narrative that intertwines exile and culture, through the figure of a twentieth-century writer and her gaze on Europe fleeing disaster. Paolo Nori, with Chiudo la porta e urlo (Mondadori), 180 votes, proposed by Giuseppe Antonelli, presents a personal, painfully autobiographical work, in which the author addresses the theme of the loss of his father and the attempt to decipher the world through writing and memory. Finally, Michele Ruol, with Inventario di quel che resta dopo che la foresta brucia (TerraRossa Edizioni), 180 votes, proposed by Walter Veltroni, signs a novel with a strong ecological and existential imprint, which tells of the remains and rebirths after destruction, with a lyrical style and a fragmented structure.

626 jurors out of 700 eligible voters cast their votes, equal to 89.4%, including the 400 Amici della Domenica, 245 foreign voters from 35 Italian Cultural Institutes around the world and other collective votes from schools, universities, reading clubs and representatives of the professional and business world. Alongside the finalists, other titles also garnered consensus, including Saba Anglana, Giorgio van Straten, Valerio Aiolli, Wanda Marasco, Deborah Gambetta and Renato Martinoni, testifying to the quality and variety of contemporary Italian fiction.

The final verdict is scheduled for Thursday, July 3 at the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia in Rome, live on Rai Tre hosted by Pino Strabioli. On the eve of the final evening, July 2, the finalists will meet the public at the Museo Maxxi, during Abracabook, the silent book party organized by the Scuola Holden.

Before the grand finale, the five finalist authors will embark on an 18-stage tour in Italy and abroad, including Warsaw (June 17), at the Italian Cultural Institute, to continue to engage with readers. The importance of the Strega Prize was made tangible by the words of the 2024 winner, Donatella Di Pietrantonio, with L'età fragile (Einaudi), who defined this year as “magical, bewitched, beautiful”. “After the Strega Prize,” she said, “you need a beastly physique, and I didn’t have one, but I invented it. I come from a distant place in literature and this recognition represented a fundamental moment for me to strengthen my identity as an author”. Regarding the future, she revealed that she has “something in incubation”, but for now she feels the need to stop to “find the necessary silence”.

On the organizational front, the director of the Goffredo and Maria Bellonci Foundation, Stefano Petrocchi, fueled the anticipation for the final: “Sometimes the vote that determines the winner surprises me, other times not. But never like this time was the shortlist unexpected. I want to launch this expectation for the final evening”. The president of the Bellonci Foundation, Giovanni Solimine, underlined the social and cultural value of the Award: “It is evident how the selected books are able to intercept emotions, desires and interests of a very large audience. Tonight's occasion, with such a large participation, confirms that communities can truly be built around books, through direct encounters between authors and readers”.