Dario Franceschini wins the 2025 Parco Majella Fiction Award.

Aqua e tera , the novel by Dario Franceschini , wins the 2025 edition of the Parco Majella Prize . The book, published by La nave di Teseo, won over both the expert and reader juries, receiving 118 votes. Set in the province of Ferrara , it intertwines the love story between two women with themes of the Resistance , struggle, and the search for identity.

Franceschini 's book was described by the jury as a story that "speaks to the heart." Paolo Pileri won the nonfiction category with "Dalla parte del suolo. L'ecologia invisibile" (Laterza); and Bruno Di Pietro won the poetry category with "Quando verrà il passato" (When the Past Will Come ), published by Les Flâneurs Edizioni.

Franceschini , who served as Minister of Culture for seven years on and off from 2014 to 2022, published his first novel in 2006: Nelle vene quell'acqua d'argento (In the Veins That Silver Water) , which won the Premier Roman de Chambéry prize in France and the Bacchelli prize in Italy. He subsequently published La follia improvviso by Ignazio Rando and the short story collection Disadorna . His novels have been translated into French by Gallimard .