Zanibelli Prize, the winners of the tenth edition

Tenth edition, this year, for the Angelo Zanibelli literary prize, “The word that cares”. Awarded with a ceremony at the French Embassy in Rome, the prizes of the competition, conceived and promoted by Sanofi in memory of Angelo Zanibelli, which rewards care and health stories, direct experiences of people with an illness or who takes care of it, with the aim of supporting the value of narration as a therapeutic and social awareness tool.

The jury, chaired by Gianni Letta, who presented in detail the components, leading personalities from the world of politics, culture, health and journalism, awarded prizes to the published and unpublished works presented and other special prizes that characterize the competition . Recurring themes in the proposals of this tenth edition, the inclusion of diversity, personal and emotional maturation when one comes into contact, more or less closely, with the disease, but also the legacy left by the Covid-19 emergency, with all the reflection it brings with it.

But let’s get to the prizes. For the published works, fiction category, you won My brother is a giant (Sperling & Kupfer, 2021) by Luigi Mastroianni, a long love letter from the author to his brother Salvo, who suffers from Down Syndrome. Their story is a wonderful adventure: that of two brothers, who grew up in a small Sicilian village, who hold hands and fight against everything and everyone in favor of inclusion. Among the proposals of award-winning non-fiction The light treasure (Solferino Libri, 2021) by Luca Richeldi who, as a pulmonologist, found himself at the forefront of the fight against Covid-19 and since those terrible days has built a book full of passion and culture, which illuminates the functioning of our breath, traces the most important turning points in research, makes us meet fascinating characters through which to tell the work of science.

For the illustrated category the prize went to What’s in my head (The Beaver, 2021) by Pierdomenico Baccalario, Federico Taddia, Luca Bonfanti, a book that explains to young readers how the brain is structured and works, how thoughts, empathy and emotions, memory and sleep, ideas, curiosity develop. All with clear, fun, accessible language and pages full of illustrations, boxes and comics.

Awarded for the unpublished work At least a little more from Emanuele Galesi which will be published by Piemme. Chosen by the jury from among all the nominations received, it is the story of a son at his father’s bedside looking for the meaning of the power of the word on the thread of his memory.

Special mention “Readers Book Club” attributed by a social jury made up of readers engaged, via Instagram, by bookgrammers Marta Perego and Stefania Soma (on social networks @Petuniaollister) for The art of connecting people (Einaudi, 2021) by Paolo Milone: positively received by the public and critics, it tells with great humanity about emergency psychiatry, life inside the psychiatric ward and that invisible, very thin border between the healthy and the sick.

The special prize “The Word that Cures” is awarded every year to an association of patients for communication and dissemination activities on the pathology of reference and the problems connected to it. This year, the jury awarded the communication project “A rare friend”, created in 2021 by AIAF APS – Association of Patients with Anderson-Fabry Disease, to increase knowledge of the pathology and help promote increasingly early diagnoses: this is of the cartoon “Un Amico Raro”, inserted as a special episode within the Rai animated series ‘Leo Da Vinci’, co-produced by AIAF together with Gruppo Some, Rai Ragazzi and Cosmos Maya and made with the collaboration of the Multidisciplinary Group for the Hereditary Metabolic Diseases of the Adult of the AOU of Padua.

And always attributed by the jury to a personality who has particularly distinguished himself for his commitment and responsibility in the health or clinical field, the prize was awarded to Silvio Brusaferroa life dedicated to hygiene and public health, President of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, former member of the technical-scientific committee set up to deal with the Covid-19 epidemic.

Finally, the “The value of public-private partnership” award is a recognition, expressly aimed at young recent graduates, which aims to evaluate the analytical thinking, the ability to investigate and deepen students, calling to produce a paper on the theme “The value of Public-Private Partnership “: the winner, Astrid Finocchiaro, a LUISS graduate, will be hired as a trainee at the Sanofi Italia Department of Public Affairs and will collaborate with a company Tutor, in support of projects with national and regional institutions.

Marcello Cattani, president of Sanofi Italia and of Farmindustria, commented “Never so evidently as in recent years, have we grasped how much imbalances related to health can affect personal and common feelings, with important repercussions on many aspects of life and society in we live in. The Zanibelli Prize, which once again gratifies us for authorial excellence, in these ten years has allowed us to record these changes, which guide our social commitment and restore hope in the face of the epochal challenges we are going through “.