On Monday October 19, 2015, at 6:30 pm, with the Ambassador of Italy to the United States, Claudio Bisogniero, in attendance, the Embassy of Italy in Washington will host the award ceremony for the Italian winners of the first edition of The Bridge Book Award. The Bridge prize represents the ideal "bridge" joining Italian and American culture to reinforce mutual understanding through the promotion of several of the finest and most recent publications of fiction and non-fiction from both countries.

Ambassador Bisogniero, who will preside over the ceremony, commented, "It is a true honor for me to be able to host this important award ceremony, which will launch the 15th Italian Language Week in the World this year and which, as the name The Bridge indicates, puts forth the ambitious goal of bringing the cultures of Italy and the United States closer together. I am especially happy for the winners of this first awarding ceremony, Domenico Starnone for fiction and Quinto Antonelli for non-fiction."

The award is divided into an Italian section and an American section, each following the same selection criteria. The competing books, ten for each country and five in each category of fiction and non-fiction, are published in their respective countries during the year preceding the award. The Italian and American authors are judged in two rounds of voting during the month of September, each by a jury of the other nationality, comprised of 50 jurors, 25 for each category. The winners receive a monetary prize, and their book will be translated and published in the other language.

The award ceremony at the Embassy of Italy in Washington D.C. will see the special participation of singer Chiara Civello and a panel discussion with the two winners, Domenico Starnone and Quinto Antonelli, Jhumpa Lahiri (Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Professor at Princeton University) and Charles Klopp (Professor Emeritus of Italian, Ohio State University).

The award ceremony for the American winners of the first edition of The Bridge Book Award, Laird Hunt for fiction and Robert Harrison for non-fiction, will take place on October 15, 2015, at the Embassy of the United States in Rome.

The Bridge/Il Ponte award was created and promoted by the Casa delle Letterature of the Municipality of Rome, with the American Initiative for Italian Culture Foundation (AIFIC), the Embassy of the United States of America in Rome, the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) and the Federazione Unitaria Italiana Scrittori (FUIS). It is sponsored by the Embassy of Italy in Washington and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the collaboration of the American Academy in Rome, the Italian Cultural Institute in Washington, the Calandra Institute in New York and other Italian and American cultural institutions and universities.

Italian and American executive committees for the award, made up of representatives from all the institutions, agencies and sponsors, oversee the selection of all the nominated books and the jury members.

The Book Award Candidates of the first edition of The Bridge:

AMERICAN FICTION
BEFORE, DURING, AFTER, by Richard Bausch (Knopf 2014)
CITIZEN, AN AMERICAN LYRIC, by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf 2014)
LAND OF LOVE AND DROWNING, by Tiphanie Yanique (Riverhead 2014)
THE MOOR'S ACCOUNT, by Laila Lalami (Pantheon, 2014)
NEVERHOME, by Laird Hunt (Little, Brown a Company 2014)

AMERICAN NONFICTION
A CINEMA OF POETRY. Aesthetics of the Italian Art Film, by Joseph Luzzi (John Hopkins University Press 2014)
FASCISM, ARCHITECTURE, AND THE CLAIMING OF MODERN MILAN, 1923-43, by Lucy Maulsby (Toronto University Press 2014)
JUVENESCENCE. A Cultural History of Our Age, by Robert Pogue Harrison (Chicago UP 2014)
LAUGHTER IN ANCIENT ROME, by Mary Beard (University of California Press 2014)
PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Artist and Man, by James R. Banker (Oxford University Press 2014)

ITALIAN FICTION
BELLA MIA, by Donatella Di Pietrantonio (Elliot 2014)
GIORNI DI SPASIMATO AMORE, by Romana Petri (Longanesi 2014)
LACCI, by Domenico Starnone (Einaudi 2014)
TOMMASO SA LE STELLE, by Giovanni Montanaro (Feltrinelli 2014)
UNA PARETE SOTTILE, by Enrico Regazzoni (Neri Pozza 2014)

ITALIAN NONFICTION
L'AMOROSO PENSIERO: Petrarca e il romanzo di Laura, by Marco Santagata (Mondadori 2014)
CARLO III, by Giuseppe Caridi (Salerno Editrice 2014)
I COGNOMI DEGLI ITALIANI. Una storia lunga 1000 anni, by Roberto Bizzocchi (Laterza 2014)
RITORNI DI FIAMMA. Storie Italiane, by Mario Isnenghi, (Feltrinelli 2014)
STORIA INTIMA DELLA GRANDE GUERRA. Lettere, diari e memorie dei soldati al fronte, by Quinto Antonelli (Donzelli 2014)

To learn more about the event at the Embassy: http://www.iicwashington.esteri.it/iic_washington/en/gli_eventi/calendario/book-award-the-bridge.html