Vittorini's prose, Guttuso's painting

Two complementary languages: the prose of Elio Vittorini and the neorealist painting of Renato Guttuso. Two Sicilians, two friends, two intellectuals. United by the idea that as a writer and as a painter they had a civil responsibility that went beyond their art. Professor Enzo Papa, a great scholar of Vittorini, reconstructs in great detail the planned illustrated edition of «Conversation in Sicily», entrusted to the drawings of Renato Guttuso and which remained unfinished during the war years. With the tools of those who love to reconstruct the historical truth, and therefore through documentary research, between letters, testimonies, archive materials, Papa manages to tell the story of two protagonists of the twentieth century capable of giving life to an editorial project between word and image. The preview presentation of Enzo Papa's essay «Vittorini, Guttuso and 'Conversazione Illustrata'» opened the Vittorini Week yesterday, which will end on Saturday evening with the award ceremony at the Antico Mercato of Ortigia. Competing for the final victory of the twenty-fifth edition of the Elio Vittorini National Literary Prize will be Erica Donzella from Catania with «Non offendere» (Kalòs), Rosa Matteucci with «Cartagloria» (Adelphi) and Nadeesha Uyangoda with «Acqua rossa» (Einaudi). The winner for the First Work section is the journalist from Stretti Anna Mallamo, author of the novel 'Col cuore me la vedo io' (Einaudi). The Arnaldo Lombardi Prize for independent publishing, dedicated to the memory of one of the 'fathers' of the Vittorini Prize, went instead to the Calabrian publishing house Rubbettino.