Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award – Jean-Claude Mourlevat

This year the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was given to Jean-Claude Mourlevat, “a brilliant renewer of fairy tale traditions, open to both hardship and beauty. Time and space are suspended in his fictional worlds, and eternal themes of love and longing, vulnerability and war are portrayed in precise and dreamlike prose.”

Mourlevat is a French children and young adult author and translator. Fairy tale, fable and fantasy are the key ingredients of his books, in which he draws on literary traditions to create worlds that resemble no other.

Since 2002, the global prize Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award is given annually to a person or organization for their outstanding contribution to children’s and young adult literature, in order to promote every child’s right to great stories.

Mourlevat’s books have been translated into nearly 20 languages, including Italian and Swedish.

Have you read anything by Jean-Claude Mourlevat?

Press Photo

Premio Strega 2021

The 12 books nominated to the Strega Prize 2021 have finally been revealed.

The Strega Prize is the most prestigious Italian literary award. Founded in 1947, it awards the best work of prose fiction written in the Italian language every year.

Among the candidated authors, we can find Donatella Di Pietrantonio and her new novel “Borgo sud“, that is the sequel of “L’Arminuta“, a story about motherhood, love and abandonment.

“L’Arminuta” was published in Sweden in 2019 by Polaris thanks to a C.M. Lerici Foundation’s grant.

Have you already read one (or more) of them in Italian? Which one would you like to read in Swedish?

World Poetry Day: “Historier”, Antonella Anedda

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Celebrate the World Poetry Day with the Italian poet Antonella Anedda.

Lyrikvännen has recently published “Historier“, a selection from Anedda’s latest critically acclaimed collection, which investigates personal and public issues, history, geography, astronomy, and international politics.

Antonella Anedda is one of Italy’s most popular poets and essayists. She wrote multilingual poetries that resort to different dialects. Her work won several prizes and it has also been included in various anthologies that has also been translated into various languages, such as Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Spanish, French and English.

“Historier” has been translated in Swedish by Ida Andersen and Nina M. Olsson and it has been published thanks to a grant by the C.M. Lerici Foundation.

International Women’s Day

Today it’s the International Women’s Day, a day to remember how important are women in society, even if gender equality seems to be still far from our society.

“Advancing gender equality in science and technology is essential for building a better future”, Secretary-General António Guterres stated.

According to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “women account for only one third of the world’s researchers and hold fewer senior positions than men at top universities, which has led to a lower publication rate, less visibility, less recognition and, critically, less funding”.

Changing the future is possibile, but it needs our collective efforts. C.M. Lerici Foundation supports women in all the professional fields through annual scholarships aimed at promoting the cultural exchange between Italy and Sweden.

Photo by Drew Hays on Unsplash

QS World University Rankings

The QS World University Rankings could be a valid help to find where to study.

Based upon academic reputation, employer reputation and research impact, the QS World University Rankings show the best universities in the world, classified by subject.

This year, La Sapienza University in Rome ranks first in “Classics & Ancient History”, while 7 courses of MIP Politecnico di Milano – including “Arts and Design” and “Architecture” – have been evalueted as the best 50 in the world.

In “Arts and Humanistic Studies”, Ca’ Foscari in Venice reaches the 107th position in the world and the 3rd in Italy for the disciplines Modern Languages (59th in the world), History (among the best 150) and Linguistics (among the top 200).

Photo by Carlos Ibáñez on Unsplash

Why is the cultural exchange so important? #5

Why is the cultural exchange so important?

There’s no better answer than the one given by the students in Scandinavian languages.

Alessandro Niero is a student in Swedish and Scandinavian studies at Ca Foscari in Venice. Many people asked him the reason why he decided to take up Swedish. No, it’s not because his dream job is working at Ikea (sorry, IKEA!).

He was driven by his huge curiosity and today he is grateful to has followed it. In this video he shares with us his experience beside a a couple of very valid reasons to study Swedish language and culture.

Watch the video here.

“Gränsen för livets värde” – Sandro Veronesi

Last year, the Italian writer Sandro Veronesi won the Strega Prize with his latest novel “Il colibrì”.

Now, the Swedish publishing house Contempo releases “Gränsen för livets värde” (“Cani d’estate”), that Veronesi wrote in 2018.

In this book, the author tells the story of Aquarius and Diciotti ships, the closure of ports as the only solution to migration, the clearance of a xenophobic and racist language, but also the collective mobilization in defense of fundamental human rights and the politics of hospitality and solidarity.

“Gränsen för livets värde” was published also thanks to the C.M. Lerici Foundation’s literary grant.

The Passenger – Sweden

Since 1986 the Swedish writer Fredrik Sjöberg has lived on Runmarö island, a natural paradise in Stockholm archipelago. Here he studies insects and he reflects on changes in fauna, flora and landscape, discovering unexpected returns and sensational apparitions of disappeared or emigrated species.

Fredrik Sjöberg is a Swedish writer and cultural journalist, but also entomologist and collector. He studied biology at Lund University and after his degree he spent two years traveling around the world.

In Italy his books has been published by Iperborea and you can read more about his life on Runmarö on “The Passenger – Sweden“, a book-magazine that collects investigations, literary reportages and narrative essays in order to portrait the contemporary life of a country and its inhabitants.

“The Passenger – Sweden” was published also thanks to a literature grant by the C.M. Lerici Foundation.

Photo: Giulia Mangione / Prospekt Photographers.

The call 2021 is closed!

The C.M. Lerici Foundation call for applications 2021 is now officially closed!

Despite the challenging and difficult times we are living in, we have received many interesting applications, both for scholarship and literature support.

We look forward to reading all of them and presenting you the projects that will be selected.

The new call 2022 will be open again from 1st December 2021, but in the meantime we will continue to tell the Foundation’s story and work.

Photo: Stockholm’s library by Katja-Anna Krug on Unsplash

Why the cultural exchange is so important? #4

Why the cultural exchange is so important?

Renata is a master student in Swedish Language and Literature at Ca Foscari in Venice.

When she first started learning Swedish four years ago, she was just curious about this mysterious and cold cuountry up North.

At that time, she didn’t know how fascinating and interesting this culture could be.

In Stockholm she also had the opportunity to experience the truly Swedish life, taking part in some of the Nordic traditions, such as the celebration of Luciatåg in December.

Let’s virtually travel to Sweden with Renata! Watch the video here.