Strega Prize 2025, for the Non-Fiction section a work by the Apulian publisher Laterza wins

The 2025 edition of the Strega Prize ended with the victory of the super favorite Andrea Bajani, but Puglia entered the coveted literary event with two of "its" publishing houses.

Bajani brought his novel "L'anniversario", already winner of the Premio Giovani and for this reason in pole position to receive the coveted bottle of Liquore Strega. In second place Elisabetta Rasy with Perduto è questo mare (Rizzoli), 133 votes and in third Nadia Terranova with Quello che so di te (Guanda), 117 votes. Fourth Paolo Nori with Chiudo la porta e urlo (Mondadori), 103 votes and fifth Michele Ruol with Inventario di quel che resta dopo che la foresta brucia (TerraRossa), 99 votes. The total votes cast is 646, equal to 92% of those entitled to vote. The polling station is chaired by Donatella Di Pietrantonio, winner of the 2024 edition.

But this year the Strega Prize smells of Puglia for two reasons: among the five finalist books present in the evening at the Ninfeo of Villa Giulia in Rome hosted by Pino Strabioli is the surprising and debuting Michele Ruol presented Inventory of what remains after the forest published by the Bari-based publishing house TerraRossa. A book that traverses with the spare style and surgical precision of Ruol, who in life is an anesthetist, the unspeakable pain of the loss of not one but two children and of the ability, if it exists, to survive this laceration of the soul.

The second reason why Puglia is a full-fledged contender for the 2025 Strega Prize is the victory in the Nonfiction Section of Il dottrina della democrazia, written by historian and essayist Anna Foa, one of the most authoritative voices in Italian culture, and also published by a publishing house in Bari, Laterza Edizioni. A passionate but rigorous pamphlet, which is not afraid to address the internal contradictions of a country marked by political tensions, institutional crises and growing radicalization, but also by a history of extraordinary complexity. The Strega Nonfiction Prize is also in its first edition: it was born with the aim of promoting reading as a tool for information and a stimulus for reflection, encouraging readers to decipher the complexity of the contemporary world.