The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation has announced the 1st edition of the “Calvino Invisibilia” creative writing contest, in collaboration with the Universita’ per Stranieri di Siena, Farm Cultural Park and COMICON, international comic book fair held in Naples since 1998.
The competition is aimed at students in the “lettorati”, Italian public and private secondary schools abroad as well as Italian sections in foreign and international schools, and aims to promote the Italian language and culture through the work of Italo Calvino, whose centenary of the birth falls this year. In particular, consistently with the topic of the Week of the Italian Language in the World, namely, “Italian and Sustainability,” the project aims to develop the philosophical and utopian components of “Invisible Cities.”
The proposed texts should consist of the conception and narration of imaginary cities, captured in their social, historical, artistic, anthropological, urban planning and environmental dimensions. Students are invited to participate individually or in groups, using, in the narrative of the imaginary city, a series of categories similar to those identified by Calvino in his work, serving as food for thought on the contemporary city: what is the city today, and how should it be for us? The works, to be submitted in either word or pdf format, should be no more than 5 folders in length (2,500 characters including spaces per folder).
To enter a class in the competition, the lead teacher must send an e-mail to dgdp-05.comunicazione@esteri.it by December 15, 2023. The e-mail should specify the following data:
– School, class, section;
– E-mail and full address of the school;
– Name, surname, e-mail address of the referring teacher;
– Names of individual students who wrote the paper;
– Assignment of rights to the paper;
– Authorization to process personal data.
In order to introduce students to the mechanisms of storytelling, the work of Italo Calvino and reflections on the meanings of the city, the environment and sustainability, classes that have submitted applications will be able to participate in online meetings organized by MAECI with the Universita’ per Stranieri di Siena and Farm Cultural Park.
Works should be sent to the e-mail address dgdp-05.comunicazione@esteri.it by May 30, 2024. Only original and unpublished works, the content of which meets the requirements and the aims of the competition, are admitted. The works produced must not be of a commercial and/or advertising nature or have content contrary to the law.
