On September 19, the Israeli writer Eshkol Nevo won the 19th annual Crédit Agricole “La storia in un romanzo” (History in a Novel) Award at the Pordenonelegge Literary Festival. The author of World Cup Wishes, Homesick, and Three Floors received the award during the literary event in the city in Friuli. According to the award citation, Nevo was chosen “for knowing how to transform grand history into an intimate experience, showing how the most dramatic collective events and the fractures of our time are reflected in the daily lives, affections, desires, and fears of ordinary people.”
In his novels, the jury notes, “Israel is never merely a geographical or political backdrop.” It is instead “a human laboratory crossed by conflicts, hopes, and universal questions.”
The jury added that, especially in a time of slogans and polarization, Nevo’s work “reminds us that the novel remains one of the privileged places to exercise understanding, doubt, and listening to the other, restoring to literature its most precious civic function.”