2008 Mondello Prize to Bernardo Atxaga

A few weeks ago we wrote about the Grinzane Cavour Prize that was awarded to Bernardo Atxaga this year, and this week we've learned that the Premio Letterario Internazionale Mondello-Citta di Palermo, or Mondello Prize, will be awarded to the Basque writer as well.

The Mondello Prize is one of the most prestigious in Europe and Atxaga was unanimously chosen for the foreign writer category for his novel Il libro de mio fratello (The Accordionist's Son).

The 34th Mondello Prize is sponsored by the Banco di Sicilia Foundation and the Andrea Biondo Foundation. Previous winners include major authors in world literature, including Nobel Prize winners Josef Brodskji, Doris Lessing, Günter Grass, Octavio Paz and José Saramago. The complete list of prize winners can be seen in the PDF file (PDF, 150 Kb)

The jury's selections were announced on April 22 and the prizes will be given out on May 23-24. In addition to the award ceremony, there will be a round table with some of this year's winners, including Bernardo Atxaga, Andrea Bajani, Antonio Scurati, Flavio Soriga and Tzvetan Todorov

More information in the following PDFs and links (in Italian):

• Jury
• Official Press Release
• Jury Statement

Corriere della Sera

• Scrivere e il mio impegno civile
• Dal franchismo all'Eta: due premi al romanzo di una stagione di illusioni