SOURCE: PR.COM

Celebrated Italian author Angela De Leo was awarded the esteemed 2023 Gjenima Prize for Literature in dual ceremonies in Rome and her hometown, Bitonto. Recognized for her six-decade influence on Italian literature, De Leo's extensive body of work includes acclaimed novels, short stories, poetry, and essays. Beyond her personal accomplishments, she has played a crucial role in promoting literary culture as an editor, publisher, and advocate for other writers.

 In festive ceremonies held in Italy's capital and in the southern city of Bitonto, the outstanding Italian writer Angela De Leo received the 2023 Gjenima Prize for Literature. Reflecting the writer's role in the full span of Italian literature, as well as her mutually generous relationship with her native Puglia region on the country's southeast coast, the May 27 award presentation in Rome was paired with a May 30 encore in De Leo's hometown.

A vital force in Italian literature for six decades, De Leo has published numerous acclaimed short stories, poetry collections, novels and essays, while also supporting other writers as a publisher, editor and promoter of literary culture.

De Leo has been associated with La Vallisa, a group of southern Italian poets, writers and intellectuals Italy committed to building cultural bridges with other countries in the Mediterranean and beyond, with a special emphasis on the Balkans. She has enacted similar convictions as an editor for the magazines Corellazioni universali and NEDA, as well as in co-founding the literary publisher SECOP Edizione, for which she directs the "I Girasoli" poetry series. Her poetry has been published in Italian, English, Serbian and Romanian.

Granted to writers in countries around the world each year since 2004, the Gjenima Prize is awarded as an "expression of thanks to the majestic spirit of the written word in the interest of the human race." The internationally oriented prize recognizes the creator of an important body of literary work or a single major literary achievement that has played, or has major potential to play, a beneficial role in current history.