AND “Golden years” Of Arno Camenisch (Keller publisher), the winner of the 50th edition of ITAS Mountain Book Award. The work of the Swiss writer and poet was honored on Sunday 28 April during an evening show at Social Theater of Trentohosted by Raffaello Fusaro and animated by two prestigious guests, Corrado Augias and Veronica Pivetti, who enhanced the theme of the High Lands by combining the importance of the environment with the foresight of investing in valorisation of Alpine cultureas ITAS Mutua does with its 50 edition literary competition.
In the book, Arno Camenisch talks about the story of Margrit and Rosa-Maria who for 51 years have been managing a kiosk and a fuel pump which are the point of reference for the entire town and for those who travel the roads of those mountains. Arno Camenisch outlines with great irony and a certain nostalgia a beautiful and bright world which almost risks disappearing, in a story of universal value that makes a small corner of the mountains a mirror of our times.
“Arno Camenisch is fully a “mountain storyteller”; he grew up in the Alpine area, writes in German and in the Romansh of his native Canton of Grisons, and the point of view he adopts on the highlands in his latest novel left the jury enchanted. It could be said that Camenisch looks at the mountains from below, since the two protagonists of his story run a kiosk just eight hundred meters above sea level along the road that leads to a pass. Their observation point, therefore, is not simply placed at a modest altitude compared to the peaks that surround it, but coincides with an obligatory transit point for those – locals, day trippers or more or less illustrious holidaymakers – who move through the valley. How many times have we passed by an isolated petrol station, perhaps selling food and stationery items, and wondered what kind of life do the people who run it lead? With his latest book Camenisch gives us the answer, staging the memories and small squabbles of Margrit and Rosa-Maria, who have opened the kiosk every day since 1969. They have been seeing people pass by for fifty-odd years and collecting their confidences, and the flow of their dialogue coincides with the entire work. It feeds on the great snowfalls of the past and the sentimental events of the valley dwellers, on great questions about our place in the world and on the time when a World Cup was being played and the kids went crazy for the footballers’ stickers. The world has changed around them one month at a time, but Margrit and Maria-Rosa continue to turn on their yellow sign every day, which seems like the “main switch” of the town. We smile and are moved by reading about them, we reflect on what the mountains are becoming and we salute the talent of a true author, capable of finding the most authentic humanity even in a place that for most represents only a technical stopover , if not a useless distraction along the road that leads to one’s destination”, reads the motivation with which the jury recognized the value of Arno Camenisch’s work.
The other winners of the respective categories I am:
• Adam the climber by Pietro Dal Pra and Adam Ondra, South Side, for the “Mountaineering and mountain sports” section.
• Go Path by Yuri Basilicò and Sara Furlanetto, Rizzoli, for the “Guides and maps” section.
• Discovering the invisible. The incredible story of Alexander von Humboldtby Volker Mehnert and Claudia Lieb, Donzelli, for the section “Children’s books
• The mountain by Carlo Mollino by Antonio De Rossi and Roberto Dini, Hoepli, for the “Research and environment” section.
Winner of the “Special Mention Trentino”:
• Merchants of light. Opticians and photographers from Tesis between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by Elda Fietta, Publistampa Edizioni.
Another special mention was awarded to Versante Sud publishing housefor the quality work carried out consistently in recent years in the publication of guides and maps.
