The new edition of Incroci di Civiltà, Venice International Literature Festival opens with an event that weaves together literature, publishing, and cultural commitment. During the opening day, the festival’s three awards are presented: the Cesare De Michelis Prize for innovative publishing, the Incroci Giovani – Golden Tree Prize, and the Incroci – Civic Museums of Venice Prize.
The Cesare De Michelis Prize, promoted by the De Michelis family, Marsilio, and Incroci di Civiltà, celebrates the figure of the publisher as a bridge between economy and culture. For the first time, the award was announced in October at the Frankfurt Book Fair, marking a new collaboration for Incroci, which features the participation of the fair’s president, Juergen Boos. This year’s winner is Brazilian publisher and writer Luiz Schwarcz from the Brazilian publishing house Companhia das Letras.
The Incroci Giovani – Golden Tree Prize, aimed at an author under 40 who has made an original contribution to contemporary literature, is awarded to Pierre Adrian, a French writer and essayist whose intimate and refined perspective has already captivated both readers and critics. The award, supported by the Fondazione Albero d’Oro, is presented by Béatrice de Reyniès, Secretary General of the Fondazione Albero d’Oro, and includes a residency for the author at Palazzo Vendramin Grimani.
The Incroci – Musei Civici di Venezia Prize is awarded to Hanif Kureishi by Maria Cristina Gribaudi, President of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia (MUVE). A guest of the festival in 2015 and of Verso Incroci in 2022, the British-Pakistani writer has portrayed like few others the cultural complexities of our time. After the serious injury that left him immobilized in 2022, he transformed his experience into a diary, Shattered (2024), reaffirming his ability to reinvent writing even in the most challenging moments. He will participate in the event remotely.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2
Cesare De Michelis Prize
Incroci Giovani – Golden Tree Prize
Incroci – Musei Civici di Venezia Prize
Following:
Storytelling as Resistance
Hanif Kureishi online (United Kingdom)
Meeting in Italian and English with simultaneous translation
Hanif Kureishi was born in London to a Pakistani father and an English mother. A novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, he has explored themes of identity, integration, and the contradictions of British society. He gained international recognition with the screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), a Stephen Frears film that challenged racial and class stereotypes in Thatcher’s Britain, earning him an Oscar nomination. Among his most famous works are The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), adapted by the BBC, and the novels Intimacy (1998), Something to Tell You (2008), and What Happened? (2022).
