On Saturday 19 September 2020, at 17.00, Antonella Anedda will be awarded the first prize at the Celle Arte Natura Biennial of Poetry. The event will be held at the Spazio Teatro Celle “Tribute to Pietro Porcinai” by Beverly Pepper, at the Fattoria di Celle, Santomato, Pistoia.
Antonella Anedda, known for her collections of verses as one of the leading exponents of Italian and European literature of our time, has also often ventured into experimental and innovative works with visual artists and musicians. Translator and acute scholar, with research and publications translated (together with her verses) in various languages, Anedda has always tried to dedicate space, in her investigation, also to the link between contemporary art, in its various expressions, and nature . In her human and artistic journey, Anedda is, in the words of Antonio Riccardi, “one of those poets who, miraculously, combines the characteristics of the most densely expressive poetry with the reasons for the most refined and analytical one”.
The award jury, made up of Antonio Franchini, Stefania Gori, Andrea Mati, Antonio Riccardi, Sandro Veronesi, unanimously decided to award her the Celle Arte Natura award, wanted and created by Giuliano Gori to recognize the poet who best expresses in his works a sensitivity for nature and art.
The prize, organized and awarded by the Gori collection at the Fattoria di Celle, takes its origin from the environmental work La Serra dei poeti, by Sandro Veronesi and Andrea Mati, inaugurated on 21 March 2018. A book is under construction whose texts were born during Antonella Anedda's presence in Celle, accompanied by a series of drawings by Christiane Löhr, an artist celebrated in the art world for her innate sensitivity towards nature, will be presented in March 2021.
Professor Riccardo Donati, lecturer and essayist, will introduce us to the work of Antonella Anedda; Cristiano Calcagnile will be the protagonist of a musical performance.
Antonella Anedda was born in Rome in 1955. She graduated cum laude in history of modern art with Augusto Gentili at the University of Rome La Sapienza and obtained a PhD at the University of Oxford.
His debut in poetry was in 1992 with the book Winter Residences (Premio Sinisgalli first work, Diego Valeri Prize and Tratti Poetry Prize) In 2000 with the second book: Western Nights of Peace he won the Montale Prize for published work. He works with artists such as Ruggiero Savinio who illustrates the first edition of the Winter Residences plaquette, Jenny Holzer who uses her texts for her installation at the Teatro Marcello in Rome, with musicians such as Paolo Fresu and Diego Minciacchi for whom she writes a choir for flutes and voices performed in Paris in April 2010.
With other books of poetry: The catalog of joy (2003), From the Balcony of the body (Mondadori 2007) he obtained various awards including the Dessì Prize and the Naples Prize which chooses From the balcony of the body as Book of the Year. Among the books of essays: Cosa sono gli anni, (Fazi 1997), La luce delle cose, (Feltrinelli 2000) whose pages are read together with texts by Tanizaki by Huub Ubbens for an installation dedicated to light: LED Light Exhibition Design 2010, Milan. In 2003 he edited the stories of Grazia Deledda: Come Solitude (Donzelli). In 2009 he published The life of the details. Versions of him by classic poets such as Sappho and Ovid and contemporaries such as Philippe Jaccottet are collected in the volume Distant Names. In 2012 Salva con nome (Mondadori) won, among others, the Viareggio-Rèpaci Prize. In autumn 2014, Archipelago, the anthology in English for the Bloodaxe publishing house edited by the poet Jamie McKendrick, was released.
His latest work in prose is: Isolatria. Journey to the Maddalena archipelago (Laterza, 2013). In January 2014 he won the Pushkin Prize for poetry and non-fiction. In 2018 the poetry book Historiae was released. In 2019 she was awarded the Doctorate Honoris Causa by the Université Sorbonne, Paris IV.
