Michele Prisco
Michele Prisco (18 January 1920 – 19 November 2003) was an Italian journalist, critic, and novelist.
Prisco was born and educated in Torre Annunziata. His family provided the middle-class background central to many of his books. He studied law and took examinations to become a solicitor, but decided instead on a career as a writer.
In 1942, his first short story, "Gli alianti", was published in a monthly supplement to the newspaper Il Corriere della sera. Before being mobilised, he worked as a staff member on the Gazetta del Popolo de Turin, and during the long months at the front he continued to make contributions; several of his acquaintances from this time were to become lifelong friends. These included the writers Gino Montesanto and Mario Pomilio, and the painter Enrico Accatino.
In 1949 he published his first novel, La provincia addormentata, which won the Strega gold medal for the best newcomer. The following year, he won the Venezia Prize for an unpublished work, Gli eredi del vento. In 1951 he married and relocated to Naples, where he would live until his death. His early works, such as La provincia addormentata, Eredi del vento and Figli difficili, describe the Neapolitan middle class, with all its foibles and limitations, and in particular, its inability to find a way out of the social and economic stagnation that weighed on the city at this time. Prisco later explored other social strata, but studiously avoided the impressionistic and folkloric mannerisms that were typical of post-war writers of this region.
During the 1960s he collaborated with Mario Pomilio, Domenico Rea, Luigi Incoronato, Gianfranco Venè and Leone Pacini Savoj on the literary review Le ragioni narrative, which he would edit throughout his life. He continued to work as a journalist and film critic. He was the vice secretary of the National Writers' Union for a decade. The novel Una spirale di nebbia (1966, translated into English in 1969) won him the Strega Prize and was made into an acclaimed film. He died in 2003.
Partial list of works
- La provincia addormentata, 1949
- Gli eredi del vento ("Heirs of the Wind"), 1950
- Figli difficili, 1954
- Fuochi a mare, 1957
- La dama di piazza, 1961 (Premio Napoli)
- Punto franco, 1965
- Una spirale di nebbia ("A Spiral of Mist"), 1966 (premio Strega)
- I cieli della sera, 1970 (premio Napoli)
- Gli ermellini neri, 1975
- Il colore del cristallo, 1977
- Le parole del silenzio, 1981 (premio Mediterraneo)
- Lo specchio cieco, 1984 (premio letterario Giovanni Verga, premio Hemingway, premio Fiuggi, una vita per la cultura)
- I giorni della conchiglia, 1982 (premio Sirmione Catullo, premio Rosone d’oro Pescara)
- Terre basse, 1992 (premio Sila, premio Il Pane - Castiglione del Lago, premio Boccaccio, premio Frontino - Montefeltro, premio Selezione - Penne)
- Il cuore della vita, 1995
- Il pellicano di pietra, 1996 (premio Fregene, premio Selezione Campiello, premio Viadana, premio Rhegium Julii, premio Gioi Cilento, premio Pirandello)
- Gli altri, 1999
Bibliography
- Pompeo Giannantonio. Invito alla lettura di Michele Prisco. Volume 49 of Invito alla Lettura: Sezione italiana. Mursia, 1977.
- Aurelio Benevento. La narrativa di Michele Prisco. De Luca, 1972.
External links
- Centro Studi Michele Prisco
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- 1947 Ennio Flaiano
- 1948 Vincenzo Cardarelli
- 1949 Giovanni Battista Angioletti
- 1950 Cesare Pavese
- 1951 Corrado Alvaro
- 1952 Alberto Moravia
- 1953 Massimo Bontempelli
- 1954 Mario Soldati
- 1955 Giovanni Comisso
- 1956 Giorgio Bassani
- 1957 Elsa Morante
- 1958 Dino Buzzati
- 1959 Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
- 1960 Carlo Cassola
- 1961 Raffaele La Capria
- 1962 Mario Tobino
- 1963 Natalia Ginzburg
- 1964 Giovanni Arpino
- 1965 Paolo Volponi
- 1966 Michele Prisco
- 1967 Anna Maria Ortese
- 1968 Alberto Bevilacqua
- 1969 Lalla Romano
- 1970 Guido Piovene
- 1971 Raffaello Brignetti
- 1972 Giuseppe Dessì
- 1973 Manlio Cancogni
- 1974 Guglielmo Petroni
- 1975 Tommaso Landolfi
- 1976 Fausta Cialente
- 1977 Fulvio Tomizza
- 1978 Ferdinando Camon
- 1979 Primo Levi
- 1980 Vittorio Gorresio
- 1981 Umberto Eco
- 1982 Goffredo Parise
- 1983 Mario Pomilio
- 1984 Pietro Citati
- 1985 Carlo Sgorlon
- 1986 Maria Bellonci
- 1987 Stanislao Nievo
- 1988 Gesualdo Bufalino
- 1989 Giuseppe Pontiggia
- 1990 Sebastiano Vassalli
- 1991 Paolo Volponi
- 1992 Vincenzo Consolo
- 1993 Domenico Rea
- 1994 Giorgio Montefoschi
- 1995 Mariateresa Di Lascia
- 1996 Alessandro Barbero
- 1997 Claudio Magris
- 1998 Enzo Siciliano
- 1999 Dacia Maraini
- 2000 Ernesto Ferrero
- 2001 Domenico Starnone
- 2002 Margaret Mazzantini
- 2003 Melania Gaia Mazzucco
- 2004 Ugo Riccarelli
- 2005 Maurizio Maggiani
- 2006 Sandro Veronesi
- 2007 Niccolò Ammaniti
- 2008 Paolo Giordano
- 2009 Tiziano Scarpa
- 2010 Antonio Pennacchi
- 2011 Edoardo Nesi
- 2012 Alessandro Piperno
- 2013 Walter Siti
- 2014 Francesco Piccolo
- 2015 Nicola Lagioia
- 2016 Edoardo Albinati
- 2017 Paolo Cognetti
- 2018 Helena Janeczek
- 2019 Antonio Scurati
- 2020 Sandro Veronesi
- 2021 Emanuele Trevi
- 2022 Mario Desiati