Marcello Fois won the 2026 Campiello Prize with L’immense distraction, his novel about memory, family and that strange race we call life. But on the stage of the Palazzo del Cinema in Venice, even before the award, there was space for an absence that continues to make itself present. That of Michela Murgia.
“A beautiful woman, anything but greedy, very resilient“, Fois remembered her, dedicating some of his first words to her after the victory. A tribute to the Sardinian writer who passed away in 2023 and, together, to a human and cultural bond that evidently time has not erased.
This was one of the most intense moments of the 64th edition of the Campiello Prize, which crowned Fois with 83 votes from the popular jury. A victory that came right down to the wire: I twist it by Alcide Pierantozzi stopped at 80 votes, just three less. They follow Life always by Elena Varvello with 54 votes, The little girl by Valeria Parrella with 33 e Story of a friendship by Ermanno Cavazzoni with 32.
The immense distractionthe plot
At the heart of the winning book is Ettore Manfredini and, through him, the story of an entire family and a piece of Italy. The novel opens with Ettore having just died, on February 21, 2017, while he almost has the sensation of waking up. From that moment on, his existence flashes before him again: his poor childhood, his work in the Teglio family’s kosher slaughterhouse, his economic rise, his affections, his guilt and his compromises.
It is the story of a dynasty that grew in twentieth-century Emilia, between countryside, farming and industry, until it built a small empire. But behind the success remain deceptions, ambitions and morally ambiguous choices that cross generations.
Fois brings together great and private history, the Second World War and the changes in the Po Valley, collective memory and the small details of a life: photographs, objects, flavours, apparently insignificant gestures.
The result is a novel about power, guilt, time and above all the way we remember what we have been. Because, as the title itself suggests, living may be nothing more than “an immense distraction from dying.”
Fois also remembers Grazia Deledda
In his speech, Fois wanted to broaden his gaze to another great Sardinian writer: Grazia Deledda and the reference is not accidental. In 1926, exactly one hundred years ago, Deledda received the Nobel Prize for Literature, the only Italian woman to have won it.
For Fois, literature has a precise strength:
Literature is powerful because it puts people into the story. And this is why literature and culture are scary to certain politics.
Words that gave the evening a different dimension than the simple presentation of an award.
A Campiello decided by the readers
In fact, one of the characteristics of Campiello remains its popular jury. There are 300 so-called “Anonymous Readers”, people of different ages, professions and backgrounds called to choose the winner from the five novels selected by the Literary Jury.
It has been like this since the birth of the award in 1963. Even the name “Campiello” recalls this idea: the small Venetian space where people meet, discuss and share public life.
This year the ceremony left the historic center of Venice to move to the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido, in front of over 900 spectators. The evening was hosted by Alessio Viola and Arianna Porcelli Safonov, with Margherita Vicario as musical guest and Matteo Caccia narrating the five finalist books.
The other Campiello 2026 awards
The Campiello Opera Prima went to Nadeesha Uyangoda for Dirty waterwhile Domenico Starnone received the Campiello Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.
Matteo Ghisleri instead won the Campiello Giovani with his story Route recalculationwhile Campiello Junior awarded Rosella Postorino and Daniele Mencarelli.
