Self-effacing, reserved, cultured, graceful, passionate, spicy when needed, loves to read, protagonist of the Italian and European literary world, proud supporter of Italy’s most important literary prize, Eleonora “Nora” AlbertiMarquis of the count of Cosoleto, died on Thursday in Rome. The announcement was made by daughters Alessandra and Fabrizia.
Born in 1937 into the noble Neapolitan Tranfo familywas married to Franco Alberti, president of the Strega distillery company in Benevento, who died in 2010, who linked the name of his entrepreneurial activity to the Italian literary prize, created in 1946 by the couple Goffredo and Maria Bellonci. With her husband, Franco, who was a long-time member of the Strega Prize steering committee, Alberti shared a life of commitment and passion following the prize for decades, contributing to national and international fame without ever interfering in the final evaluation of literature.
Eleonora Alberti, the soul of the Strega Prize, has died
«Until a few years ago the award did not have the structure and jury that we know today, and my aunt, in the discussions for the initial selection, had her weight» says Alberti’s nephew, Giuseppe D’Avino, president of the company Strega Alberti Benevento, still involved in organizing the award today. “My aunt and our company never felt close to a prize as a sponsor on the basis of which they could claim the right to vote for who knows what. Alberti, like others, talked with people who liked the prize, exchanging comments and opinions about the novel and its author. Sometimes, he told me, the discussions even got heated, but in the end we always found a solution with maximum transparency and always tried to make the most feasible calculations.”
As the awards took on a more complex structure, Alberti increasingly remained behind the scenes. Stefano Petrocchi, director of the Bellonci Foundation and member of the award’s steering committee, said: «She was a woman who loved getting together with others, interacting with people who had different lives, origins and cultures. A great reader and reference for the Prize, with whom I accompanied the five finalists abroad to various Italian cultural institutions until a few years ago.”
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Among the authors most associated with Alberti, Antonio Pennacchiwho died in 2021 and won the award in 2010 alongside Canale Mussolini and, in recent years, Giorgio Bassani. With the latter, who won the prize in 1956 with Five Stories of Ferrara, he loved to play tennis, there are stories about endless matches in which neither wants to let the other win. «Beyond the winners and finalists, the competition, the jealousy and the envy, my aunt had an extraordinary ability to create community among writers, and everyone appreciated this gift and anyone who was part of the Strega family recognized it» said D’Avino.
Proof of the truth of Alberti’s nephew’s words is the writer Mario Desiati who won Strega 2022 with Spatriati. «In 2011 I was one of the finalists with Ternitti. I was still young, I was thirty-four years old and Alberti immediately liked me, he introduced me to the others, Bruno Arpaia, Mariapia Veladiano, Luciana Castellina and Edoardo Nesi who later became the winner. He managed to create a team atmosphere among us. Of course, everyone wanted to win, but no one looked at each other with suspicion, on the contrary, there was an atmosphere of friendship, transcending differences in age and career.” Desiati was one of the first to remember Alberti, thanking him publicly for the encouragement he had never lacked since 2011. «He advised me to give up everything and become a writer instead, advice that I followed also thanks to him».
«With her death it is as if the ideal world of culture built and held together, over the years, by women driven by a shared spirit of elevating a culture that reached one of its highest peaks is coming to an end» concludes D’Avino, referring to the years in which the prestige of Strega was built edition after edition by, together with Alberti, women such as Inge Feltrinelli, Maria Ida Cartoni of the Einaudi publishing house, Maria Bellonci, Alba Carla de Céspedes, Anna Maria Rimoaldi. «A very feminine tribute, otherwise it wouldn’t be called Strega» concludes D’Avino.
