The Premio Campiello is an annual Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

 literary prize.

A Jury of Literary Experts (Giuria di letterati in Italian) identifies books published during the year and, in a public hearing, selects five of those as finalists. These books are called il Premio Selezione Campiello. Then a jury of 300 readers (called Giuria dei 300 lettori) representing different social, cultural and professional groups from each region of Italy, each with one vote, decides the winner of the selection.

History

In 1962 Confindustria

Confindustria

Confindustria is the Italian employers' federation, founded in 1910. It groups together more than 113,000 voluntary member companies, accounting for nearly 4,200,000 individuals. It aims to help Italy's economic growth, assisting, in doing so, its members...

 Veneto

Veneto

Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...

 was seeking a contact between business and the literary sector and decided to formulate a literary prize. The first award was given to Primo Levi

Primo Levi

Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...

 for his autobiographical book La Tregu

The Truce

The Truce is a book by the Italian author Primo Levi. It describes his experiences returning from the concentration camp at Auschwitz after the Second World War...

a, translated in Britain as The Truce and in the United States as Reawakening. The ceremony took place in Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

's Teatro Verde on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore

San Giorgio Maggiore

San Giorgio Maggiore is one of the islands of Venice, northern Italy, lying east of the Giudecca and south of the main island group. The isle is surrounded by Canale della Grazia, Canale della Giudecca, Saint Mark Basin, Canale di San Marco and the southern lagoon...

 on September 3, 1963.

Today, the prize is still promoted by Italian businessmen from the Veneto region and it serves to promote Italian literature.

There is a literary prize for young authors, called Campiello Giovani. Participants must prove that they are between 15 and 22 years of age to qualify. The committee that determines the Campiello Giovani is made up of young people. Very often previous winners and finalists serve on the initial jury to determine the current participants. Then, three teachers vote for the five finalists, and the Jury of 300 select the winner.

Some foreign countries, like Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, have begun to award a prize called Campiello using the same model.

Name

The word campiello is the diminutive of campo. Unlike other cities that use the word piazza to designate plazas and squares, Venice uses the word campo. Campiello is a little square.

Winners

Year	Winner	Author	Published
1963	La tregua	Primo Levi Primo Levi Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...	Einaudi Arnoldo Mondadori Editore Arnoldo Mondadori Editore is the biggest publishing company in Italy.-History:Founded by the 18-year-old Arnoldo Mondadori in 1907 to publish the magazine titled Luce!, it soon became an important publisher. Its headquarters are in Milan....
1964	Il male oscuro	Giuseppe Berto Giuseppe Berto Giuseppe Berto was an Italian writer. He is mostly known for his novels, among which Il cielo è rosso and Il male oscuro; he also wrote for cinema.-Selected works:...	Rizzoli RCS MediaGroup RCS MediaGroup S.p.A. , based in Milan and listed on the Italian Stock Exchange, is an international multimedia publishing group that operates in daily newspapers, magazines and books, radio broadcasting, new media and digital and satellite TV...
1965	La compromissione	Mario Pomicio	Vallecchi
1966	Questa specie d'amore	Alberto Bevilacqua Alberto Bevilacqua Alberto Bevilacqua is an Italian writer and filmmaker. Leonardo Sciascia, an Italian writer and politician, read Bevilacqua's first collection of stories, The Dust on the Grass , was impressed and published it...	Rizzoli
1967	Orfeo in Paradiso	Luigi Cantucci	Mondadori
1968	L'avventura di un povero cristiano	Ignazio Silone Ignazio Silone Ignazio Silone was the pseudonym of Secondino Tranquilli, an Italian author and politician.-Early life and career:...	Mondadori
1969	L'Airone	Giorgio Bassani Giorgio Bassani Giorgio Bassani was an Italian novelist, poet, essayist, editor, and international intellectual.-Biography:Bassani was born in Bologna into a prosperous Jewish family of Ferrara, where he spent his childhood with his mother Dora, father Enrico , brother Paolo, and sister Jenny...	Mondadori
1970	L'attore	Mario Soldati Mario Soldati Mario Soldati was an Italian writer and film director.-Biography:Soldati studied Humanities in his native city, Turin, and History of Art in Rome. He started publishing novels in 1929 although his fame came with America primo amore, published in 1935, a diary about the time he spent teaching at...	Mondadori
1971	Ritratto in piedi	Gianna Manzini Gianna Manzini Gianna Manzini was an Italian writer whose Ritratto in piedi won her the Premio Campiello in 1971. It is a semi-autobiographical portrait of her father, a noted Italian anarchist...	Mondadori
1972	Per le antiche scale	Mario Tobino Mario Tobino Mario Tobino was an Italian poet, writer and psychiatrist.Tobino was born in Viareggio, Tuscany. A prolific writer, he debuted as a poet but later composed mostly novels...	Mondadori
1973	Il trono di legno	Carlo Sgorlon	Mondadori
1974	Alessandra	Stefano Terra	Bompiani
1975	Il prato in fondo al mare	Stanislao Nievo Stanislao Nievo Stanislao Nievo is an Italian writer, journalist and director. He won the Strega Prize. It is the little little son of Ippolito Nievo, author of Le confessioni di un italiano.-Works:...	Mondadori
1976	Il busto di gesso	Gaetano Tumiati	Mursia
1977	Il selvaggio di Santa Venere	Saverio Strati	Mondadori
1978	Carlo Magno	Gianni Granzotto	Mondadori
1979	Storia di Tönle	Mario Rigoni Stern Mario Rigoni Stern Mario Rigoni Stern was an Italian author and World War II veteran.His first novel Il sergente nella neve, published in 1953 , draws on his own experience as a Sergeant Major in the Alpini corp during the disastrous retreat from Russia in World War II...	Einaudi
1980	Il fratello italiano	Giovanni Arpino Giovanni Arpino Giovanni Arpino was an Italian writer and journalist.- Life :Born in Pula to Piedmontese parents, Arpino moved to Bra in the Province of Cuneo...	Rizzoli
1981	Diceria dell'untore	Gesualdo Bufalino Gesualdo Bufalino Gesualdo Bufalino , was an Italian writer.Gesualdo Bufalino was born in Comiso, Sicily. He studied literature and was, for most of his life a high-school professor in his hometown...	Sellerio
1982	Se non ora quando?	Primo Levi	Einaudi
1983	La conchiglia di Anataj	Carlo Sgorlon	Mondadori
1984	Per amore, solo per amore	Pasquale Festa Campanile	Bompiani
1985	Gli occhi di una donna	Mario Biondi	Longanesi
1986	La partita	Alberto Ongaro	Longanesi
1987	I fuochi del Basento	Raffaele Nigro	Camunia
1988	Le strade di polvere	Rosetta Loy	Einaudi
1989	Effetti personali	Francesca Duranti	Rizzoli
1990	La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa	Dacia Maraini Dacia Maraini Dacia Maraini is an Italian writer. She is the daughter of Sicilian Princess Topazia Alliata di Salaparuta, an artist and art dealer, and of Fosco Maraini, a Florentine ethnologist and mountaineer of mixed Ticinese, English and Polish background who wrote in particular on Tibet and Japan...	Rizzoli
1991	Di buona famiglia	Isabella Bossi Fedrigotti	Longanesi
1992	La casa a Nord-Est	Sergio Maldini	Marsilio
1993	La valle dei cavalieri	Raffaele Crovi	Mondadori
1994	Sostiene Pereira Sostiene Pereira (novel) Sostiene Pereira is a novel written by Antonio Tabucchi in 1994. It follows Pereira, a journalist for the culture column of a small Lisbon newspaper, as he struggles with his conscience and the restrictions of the fascist regime of Antonio Salazar...	Antonio Tabucchi Antonio Tabucchi Antonio Tabucchi is an Italian writer and academic who teaches Portuguese language and literature at the University of Siena, Italy....	Feltrinelli
1995	Il coraggio del pettirosso	Maurizio Maggiani	Feltrinelli
1996	Esilio	Enzo Bettiza Enzo Bettiza Enzo Bettiza is a Dalmatian-born Italian novelist, journalist and politician.-Biography:Bettiza was born in Dalmatia, in a rich family of the Italian minority. His mother stemmed from a family of the Croatian isle of Brač...	Mondadori
1997	Il caso Courrier	Marta Morazzoni	Longanesi
1998	Il talento	Cesare De Marchi	Feltrinelli
1999	Fuochi fiammanti a un’hora di notte	Ermanno Rea	Rizzoli
2000	La forza del passato	Sandro Veronesi Sandro Veronesi Sandro Veronesi, born in Prato, Tuscany in 1959, is an Italian novelist, essayist, and journalist. After earning a degree in architecture at the University of Florence, he opted for a writing career in his mid to late twenties. Veronesi published his first book at the age of 25, a collection of...	Bompiani
2001	Nati due volte	Giuseppe Pontiggia Giuseppe Pontiggia Giuseppe Pontiggia was an Italian writer and literary critic.He was born in Como, and moved to Milan with his family in 1948. In 1959 he graduated from the Università Cattolica in Milan with a thesis on Italo Svevo...	Mondadori
2002	Il custode dell’acqua	Franco Scaglia	Piemme
2003	Il Maestro dei santi pallidi	Marco Santagata	Guanda
2004	Una barca nel bosco	Paola Mastrocola	Guanda
2005	Mandami a dire and Il sopravvissuto (tie)	Pino Roveredo Antonio Scurati	Bompiani
2006	La vedova scalza	Salvatore Niffoi	Adelphi Adelphi Edizioni Adelphi Edizioni S.p.A. is an Italian publishing house whose headquarters are in 14, via S. Giovanni sul Muro, Milan, Italy.Adelphi Edizioni was founded in 1962 by Luciano Foà and Roberto Olivetti. Contributors have included Roberto Bazlen, Giorgio Colli, Sergio Solmi, Claudio Rugafiori and...
2007	Mille anni che sto qui	Mariolina Venezia	Einaudi
2008	Rossovermiglio	Benedetta Cibrario	Feltrinelli
2009	Venuto al mondo	Margaret Mazzantini Margaret Mazzantini Margaret Mazzantini is an Italian writer and actress. She became a film, television and stage actor, but is best known as a writer. Mazzantini began her acting career in 1980 starring in the cult horror classic Antropophagus, she has also appeared in television and theatre...	Mondadori