A Literary Prize to Prof. Maddalena De Leo

Maddalena De Leo has written to us with the following information:

A LITERARY PRIZE TO Prof. MADDALENA DE LEO

for her article about a comparison she drew between Wuthering Heights and a novel by the Italian writer Francesco Bruno.

On 18th December 2009 Professor Maddalena De Leo from Ascea Marina (SA) was awarded a literary prize for an article in Italian she wrote and published on an Italian newspaper and on the Internet dealing with a comparison between an aspect of Wuthering Heights, the famous novel by Emily Brontë, and Paese di eriche e ginestre, the only novel written by the Italian critic and journalist Francesco Bruno who lived in Naples during the first part of the twentieth century.

Every year a journalistic prize and a cultural evening are held to commemorate this literary man by his still living relatives. The seventh edition of the event was held this year in Naples in the elegant Red Room of Libreria Guida, a very antique and renown bookshop in the very historical centre of the city. It was a delighting evening in which three important Italian journalists gave lectures on Futurism and Francesco Bruno’s critical contribute to it at the beginning of the last century.

Our BS member Maddalena De Leo received a plaque and a cheque by Mr Francesco D’Episcopo, Professor of Italian Literature at University Federico II in Naples and the approval and the economical contribution of the direct heirs of the late journalist and critic, Mr Francesco Jr. and Enrico Bruno and their mother, Mrs. Maria Novi Bruno.

Prof. De Leo explained to the public what inspired her to draw so strange a parallel between two worlds apparently so different, the North of England and the South of Italy, eventually the word ‘heather’ used by both the authors to describe their birth landscape. By going on in the reading of Bruno’s novel, Mrs. De Leo realized instead that the real parallel in the two novels was to be found in the inmost nature and the different fate of their main characters and so she worked on this idea.

For more information about Maddalena De Leo's work check the Brontë Society - Sezione Italiana Magazine (November 2008). More pictures of the event can be seen here, here and here.

EDIT: More information on the Brontë Parsonage Blog.

Categories: Scholar