On December 5, the eighth edition of the Bridge Book Award took place with an award ceremony at Centro Studi Americani in Rome. Four winners, whose submitted work demonstrates excellence in English and Italian fiction and nonfiction, were selected: Ada D’Adamo, Paolo Chiesa, Isabella Hammad, and Alison Cornish. The award, of which the American Academy in Rome is a partnering institution, includes a sum to cover the translation cost into the opposite language.
In the category of Italian fiction, Ada D’Adamo posthumously won for her autobiographical novel Come d’Aria (Elliot). The author died in Rome in April after a battle with cancer, which is a subject of the book.
For Italian nonfiction, Paolo Chiesa won for Marckalada: Quando l’America aveva un altro nome (Laterza), an exploration of fourteenth-century reactions to the Vikings’ discovery of America.
In the category of American fiction, the British-Palestinian writer Isabella Hammad won for Enter Ghost (Grove Atlantic), a story of diaspora, displacement, and resistance set in contemporary Palestine.
Finally, Alison Cornish won in the American nonfiction category for Believing in Dante: Truth in Fiction (Cambridge University Press), a critical reexamination of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
The Bridge Book Award is an annual prize conceived and curated by Maria Ida Gaeta to support the cross-cultural promotion of American and Italian literature. It is a partnership of the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, the Federazione Unitaria Italiana Scrittori, the American Academy in Rome, and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, among other institutions.