Time travel and dystopian futures, escapes and extinctions, and mundane objects that plunge humans into disorienting experiences—these are some of the elements that characterize the three finalist books in the second edition of the Mondofuturo Literary Prize, a competition that honors the best science fiction book, an original, untranslated work published in Italy in 2024.
The initiative, promoted and organized by the national research organization Area Science Park and La Cappella Underground, was created with the aim of sparking public interest in research, scientific culture, and literature, using science fiction as a catalyst to capture people’s attention.
The three finalists for the second edition of the Award are: Anticaja Canaglia by Cobol Pongide and Emiglino Cicala (Edizioni Progetto Cutlura), Cronache dalla deriva by Carlo Roselli (Zona 42), and Nero. Il complotto dei complotti by Luca Giommoni (effequ).
The three finalist books, selected from a shortlist of 19 books in the competition, were chosen by a jury of experts—composed of writers, university professors, journalists, and nationally renowned experts in literature and science fiction. They are: Nicoletta Vallorani, writer and professor at the University of Milan (Chair of the Jury); Loredana Lipperini, journalist, writer, and author for Rai Radio3; Alberto Garlini, editor of Pordenone Legge and writer; Giulia Martino, writer and video game critic; Andrea Viscusi, writer and content creator; Angela Bernardoni, podcaster and co-author of “Science Fiction: A History of Stories of the Future”; Elisabetta Di Minico, researcher specializing in dystopia and otherness at the Complutense University of Madrid; Dottor Pira, Italian comic book artist, graphic designer, and television writer; and Collettivo Scrittori FantaTrieste, featuring Lorenzo Davia and Fabio Novel.
“It’s only the second edition, but the leap in quality and participation compared to the first is truly remarkable: many novels, great vision, and imaginative worlds that weave together scientific ideas and literary talent to create often surprising narratives,” stated Nicoletta Vallorani, Chair of the Expert Jury , adding, “As Le Guin said, writers invent stories, which are not facts: that’s why they’re called fiction. Yet these stories reveal a great deal about the real world, and that is what makes them valuable. The finalists represent a carefully selected sample from a much larger pool. The only small regret, shared by me and all of us, is that there were few women among the contenders. But compared to last year, things are improving, and we hope to have more than one woman in the final three for the next edition.”
The three finalist works explore objects and themes related to the world of scientific research: from time travel to the use of artificial intelligence, from teleportation to aliens to laser guns. These are areas of research that have always captured the public’s interest.
The three finalist books are now in the hands of a jury of scientists—composed of approximately 50 male and female researchers and other professionals in the research field who work at Area Science Park—supported by an honorary scientific jury whose members include: Caterina Petrillo, President of Area Science Park; Giovanna Fragneto, Scientific Director of the European Spallation Source (ESS); Fabio Pagan, science journalist; Fabrizio Brancoli, deputy editor of “Il Piccolo”; Giovanni Covone, professor at the University of Naples Federico II and researcher at INFN and INAF, winner of the Asimov Prize; Stefano Liberati, professor of Astroparticle Physics at SISSA.
The Scientific Jury is tasked with selecting the winning entry from among the three works in the competition. The criteria guiding their decision will include the story’s originality and its scientific, technological, and social vision. The award will be presented in Trieste on November 2, the final day of the 25th edition of the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival.
The Mondofuturo Literary Prize project is made possible thanks to a grant from the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia and with the support of “Io sono Friuli Venezia Giulia.”
—
THE THREE FINALISTS FOR THE MONDOFUTURO LITERARY AWARD – 2025 EDITION
Nero. The Conspiracy of Conspiracies by Luca Giommoni – effequ What if all conspiracy theories were just a cover-up for a single, massive conspiracy? What if time travel were possible, and job centers found a way to send the unemployed back in time to find them work? Nero, a young unemployed man and a great expert on conspiracies, in an attempt to remedy the injustices of the present, will have to face the Kafkaesque difficulties of bureaucratic oversight bodies—shadowy powers at work to preserve social inequality and cover up the horrors. And so everything spirals into an epic multiverse where every attempt at redemption is reevaluated and every positive action distorted. But what is the purpose? And will Nero—a symbol of more than one generation crucified by meaningless jobs and performance-driven ambitions—come to understand the ironic inevitability of his own fate?
Anticaja Canaglia by Cobol Pongide and Emiglino Cicala – Edizioni Progetto Cultura A human being and an anthropomorphic toy robot meet at a flea market in Rome: one of those places where skilled nomadic scavengers rummage through trash bins, putting on a show of all the planned obsolescence of the Western world. The two discover they share inexplicable experiences linked mostly to old, obsolete, or anachronistic objects: anticaje. They therefore decide to turn their stories into a collection of short stories in an attempt—perhaps “Proustian”—to understand how those old trinkets have managed to distort reality. We will then discover that both live in a universe with physical rules somewhat different from those so familiar to us, in a continuum where future, past, and present churn in a chaotic manner, sometimes becoming indistinguishable. We’ll also discover that some of the anomalies were deliberately triggered by the toy robot, which, unbeknownst to them, enlisted the help of the nomadic Romani community, the sanitation workers, and their human friend. A somewhat deceptive tactic, to be sure, but one aimed at saving, if not the entire planet, at least a part of humanity.
Chronicles from the Drift by Carlo Roselli – Zona 42 Publishing House We all belong to one another so deeply that we find ourselves in the present, in the here, from every possible time. What will happen tomorrow, as we shift our gaze a little further away, to the desolate countryside, to the sun-scorched coasts, among the wild and inhospitable mountains of the southern Apennines? What will become of the legacy we strive to preserve for future generations? Will it be lost entirely, or will traces of it remain, understandable even across the ocean of time? It is a reflection, in the form of a polyphonic novel—both moving and stirring—on the fate that awaits us, on our endurance through an epochal transformation, on solitude and love, on death, memory, knowledge, and on the imagination’s capacity to build a possible world, finally freed from the cage of a perpetual contemporaneity, eternally identical to itself.
