Prof. Norbert Bugeja given Jury's Honourable Mention at the Mediterranean Poetry Prize

Prof. Norbert Bugeja’s poetry was last Friday awarded the Jury’s Honourable Mention at the awards ceremony for the international Mediterranean Poetry Prize, held at the Aula Consigliare of Palazzo Valentini, metropolitan seat of Rome. Already a finalist for the prestigious award, Prof. Bugeja’s work ‘Esordio’ / ‘Eżordju’ was translated into the Italian from the Maltese original by Aaron Abdilla.

‘Esordio’ captures the soul of a sustained elegy, shaped by the enduring voice of a complex female presence—at once real and mythical. It marks, moreover, the fruition of a twenty-five-year-long quest for a distinct poetic voice by means of which Bugeja delivers a hermetic and yet profoundly socialised sequence of moments. Here, forgetting, as much as remembering, becomes a means of surviving amid the ruins of an interrupted bond and the imagery of a sea as haunting as it is irrevocably broken.

Announced via Rai Cultura, the Prize for this year was awarded to Greek poet Elsa Korneti. Prof. Bugeja’s Honourable Mention joins those of Radhia Toumi, Stefan Çapaliku, Gabriella Panay, Sofia Bania, Marcello Tagliente, Vlora Ademi, and Ni’ma Hassan.

The Mediterranean Poetry Prize seeks to enhance the cultural and linguistic multiplicity of the Mediterranean, understood as a space of plurality for the circulation of cultures, languages, peoples, traditions, ideas and knowledge, expressing themes, experiences and visions of the Mediterranean in all its dimensions. Its distinguished jury of authors, scholars and journalists hails from Europe, North Africa and the United States. The Prize is held under the patronage of the universities of La Sapienza, Lille, Padova, Torino, Pisa, Napoli l’Orientale, Bari, Palermo, DAMS, Durrës, the Società Dante Alighieri, the Centro Nazionale di Studi Leopardiani, the Mediterranean Arts and Literature Movement, ISMEO, COPPEM, Medinova and the Commune di Favignana.

The prize awards ceremony for this year was accompanied by the 'Mediterranean as Poetic Project' conference, also held at Rome's Palazzo Valentini.

Norbert Bugeja is Associate Professor within the Department of English and Director of the Mediterranean Institute.