" 'The return of the Gods' won the Bancarella Sport 2022 Award. Emotion, gratitude and happiness": Thus, with grace and simplicity, the journalist and writer Marino Bartoletti announced on his Facebook page the victory of the Bancarella Sport 2022 Award. The award ceremony was held in Piazza della Repubblica in Pontremoli, in the province of Massa Carrara, in course of the evening #Community del Libro per i seventy years from the foundation of the Bancarella Award.
The Bancarella Sport is a little younger, in its 59th edition and that, in addition to the winner The return of the gods (Gallucci publisher), saw five other finalists of the 51 volumes in the competition. Gentle force. My life, my football by Andriy Shevchenko with Alessandro Alciato (Baldini & Castoldi), Mask off. Confessions of an imperfect champion by Elisa Di Francisca with Gaia Piccardi (Solferino). And then I was really there. Reportage from two viruses: Covid and journalism by Gian Paolo Ormezzano (Minerva Edizioni), Patagonia. The big dream by Ermanno Salvaterra (Mondadori) e Valentino Rossi, the kind tyrant by Marco Ciriello (66thand2nd).
In 2021 Bartoletti had finished second at the stall with "The dinner of the gods"
It is the second time that Marino Bortoletti climbs on the podium of the Bancarella. He had done it last year with the volume The dinner of the gods, silver medal of the 69th edition of the Prize. And the fact that he was a finalist for two consecutive years had recently made him write on social media: "As for me, thanks to your affection, I have already 'won' ". This year, however, Bartoletti really won. Gold medal of the Bancarella Sport, Sports Literature Award born in 1964 and which joins the Bancarella and Bancarellino, reserved for children's literature.
The return of the gods it is in a certain sense the continuation of The dinner of the gods, a volume of which Bartoletti himself had spoken, interviewed by Paola Stranges, al Caffè Letterario of italiani.it. Famous and well-known characters animate the pages of the novel once again, set in an afterlife, paradise, a place with a capital L as Bartoletti defines it, where special encounters take place. It happens to meet, the first guest of this book, a Pope (Karol Wojtyla) who knocks on Enzo Ferrari's door in order to get to know him. And perhaps to ask him to forgive him for the unjust accusations that had been leveled at Ferrari by the Vatican for putting the lives of so many young drivers at risk. So like to think of Bartoletti.
He dedicates it to Paolo Rossi and Diego Armando Maradona
The structure of this second volume is the same as the first. There is still the great old man who is called precisely Enzo Ferrari. In an afterlife where well-known and famous people meet, “Tall equally large, and perhaps united by the lack of a last caress not received". Only this time someone goes down, or rather returns, for half a day, to earth, "opportunity not only absolutely unexpected, but almost miraculous!". The chosen ones are Paolo Rossi e Diego Armando Maradona. "Pablito would be allowed to return to Earth to assist in a delicate investigation; Diego would have had the joy of seeing Naples again ...". Is exactly "To Diego and Paolo: simply great and irreplaceable friends”Marino Bartoletti has decided to dedicate this book of his.
(photo credits: Fb Marino Bartoletti)
