Maaza Mengiste’s Il Re Ombra (The Shadow King) translated by Anna Nadotti was revealed to be the winner of Premio Gregor von Rezzori 2021 on Saturday, June 5, 2020.
Gregor von Rezzori was an Austrian-born, Romanian, German-language novelist, memoirist, screenwriter and author of radio plays, as well as an actor, journalist, visual artist, art critic and art collector. He passed away in 1998 and his widow Beatrice Monti della Corte who chairs the Santa Maddalena Foundation conceived the Premio Gregor von Rezzori (the Gregor von Rezzori Prize in English) in his honour. The award which is supported by the municipality of the City of Florence, Italy is promoted by the MiBACT Center for books and reading and sponsored by the Tuscany Region.
The prize is assigned by an international jury to the best work of foreign fiction translated in Italy and published in the preceding year. Some of the previous winners have been Hisham Matar (Libya/USA), Jhumpa Lahiri (India/USA), and Maylis de Kerangal (France),
The jury for the 2021 edition of the prize is composed of Beatrice Monti della Corte, Ernesto Ferrero (president), Andrea Bajani, Maylis de Kerangal, Andrea Landolfi, Alberto Manguel and Edmund White. They announced the longlist on April 20 before the shortlist was made public on
This jury announced the longlist for the foreign fiction section was announced on April 20 before the shortlist was announced on May 13. The winner of the award was announced as Maaza Mengiste’s Il Re Ombra (The Shadow King) translated by Anna Nadotti on Saturday.
Watch Maaza Mengiste talk about her book with Argentine-Canadian anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist, and editor Alberto Manguel as part of the events in Italy below;
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