The countdown has begun to the award ceremony of the Premio Campiello 2021, which again this year is being supported by Pirelli. To find out more about the books featured in this 59th edition, the Pirelli Foundation, with Antonio Calabrò, has interviewed the five finalists.

The interviews, which will be published online on this site from today, will accompany all booklovers on the countdown to the final evening, which this year will be held for the first time at the Arsenale in Venice. The ceremony will take place on Saturday 4 September at 8.30 p.m. and will be broadcast worldwide by Rai Italia with an exceptional presenter, Andrea Delogu, an Italian radio and television presenter and writer.

This is the full programme of the interviews:

Monday 30 August 2021: Paolo Malaguti – Se l’acqua ride

Tuesday 31 August 2021: Giulia Caminito – L’acqua del lago non è mai dolce

Wednesday 1 September 2021: Paolo Nori – Sanguina ancora. L’incredibile vita di Fëdor M. Dostoevskij 

Thursday 2 September 2021: Andrea Bajani – Il libro delle case

Friday 3 September 2021: Carmen Pellegrino – La felicità degli altri

We will hear the writers telling us about adventures along the rivers of northern Italy, about mothers and daughters and the rage of a generation, about an encounter with a book that can change the course of a life, about homes that promise a happiness that is eternally elusive, about fragments of memory that attempt to recompose an existence.

Enjoy the show, and the read!

Pirelli Foundation