In Foligno, FulgineaMente honours Vanessa Ambrosecchio’s book of public memory
Le Leonesse di Vergine Maria wins the fiction category, while Paolo Benedetti takes the poetry award.
Vanessa Ambrosecchio has won the FulgineaMente fiction category with Le Leonesse di Vergine Maria, published by Mesogea. The verdict in the tenth edition came on 6 November at the Auditorium San Domenico in Foligno, in Italy’s Umbria region, and was reported by Umbria Cronaca on 8 November. Paolo Benedetti won the poetry award with È dalle crepe che entra la luce.
In Ambrosecchio’s book, a teacher comes across a story kept alive in local memory: in 1964 two children were killed by a lorry in Palermo’s Vergine Maria neighbourhood. As the narrator involves her pupils in the research, the story widens to include changes in the neighbourhood and the protests of the women who lived there. The shift from family memory to public history gives the book its civic force.