Nuoro, 28 September 2021 – A thread that unites Sardinia and Afghanistan through the courage of women. A powerful message echoed this morning in the main hall of the Ciusa di Nuoro institute to officially kick off a one-year celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the birth of Grazia Deledda. It is a very rich program that put in place by the Province and the Municipality of Nuoro, together with MAN, UniNuoro and Fondazione di Sardegna, which make up the institutional committee, which will propose a series of appointments throughout 2022 to bring out the greatness of the unique Italian writer to have won the Nobel Prize for literature.

The artistic director Anthony Muroni in the opening speech announced that there will be initiatives in Sardinia, in Italy and abroad:”We will organize an international conference between Nuoro and Cagliari that will talk about Impressionist Grazia Deledda and the event is already scheduled for 29 October in the Senate with the President Maria Elisabetta Casellati and the Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini. There will be theatrical performances, on the island and in the peninsula, and a multimedia exhibition that we will take everywhere. International events are also scheduled: one in Stockholm in collaboration with the Nobel Foundation, in Dubai for the Expo and in St. Petersburg in Russia. We will bring this great writer everywhere – Muroni reiterated – who anticipated the times in a path, that of women’s rights, which has not yet ended”

Muroni recalled how Grazia Deledda in this year of celebrations emerges”as a woman of our times, a woman who had the strength to tell her time but also to be ahead of the times, to testify with her life and with the strength of her training, his prose, his stories and his emotions the idea of ​​how society should have evolved”.

“There are feelings, dynamics and methods – continued the artistic director – through which we want to free ourselves from a destiny that seems to have been marked from birth. Grazia Deledda tells us how each individual can change this story, making choices and relating to her time and conventions in a new way. This message, particularly strong when it comes to women, will be the red thread that will unite all the initiatives we have planned”.

“Grazia Deledda is an icon of the Sardinian woman. With her Sardinia entered the cultural and literary debate of the whole world”. Thus the governor of the Region Christian Solinas who recalled:”On the island – underlined Solinas – there has always been a matriarchal society and many women have emerged from Eleonora D’Arborea onwards. In the Nuoro area, there were important examples: Grazia Deledda, Marianna Bussalai, forerunners who have established themselves in the world of Sardinian culture, who have understood and made it clear that Sardinian culture was not a limit but an excellence. Grazia Deledda, who made it to the Nobel Prize, deserves to be in the world Pantheon of literature. The work of her – continued the Sardinian governor – represents a unicum in the Sardinian and Italian panorama for this reason it deserves to be known. You proposed the identity and authenticity of Sardinia and made it clear that there was a peculiar world on our island. Thanks to her, Sardinia entered the international cultural and literary debate”.

The extraordinary administrator of the Province of Nuoro, Costantino Tidu, underlined how the celebrations represent the materialization of a path to promote the goods and values ​​of culture and knowledge,”initiated by this territory with similar project initiatives within the so-called Relaunch plan of the Nuorese area: the museum system, the initiatives in support of schools and education and the RESTART project, which sees the University Consortium as the leader”.

A program, added Tidu, which aims”to undertake an innovative and continuous path, a” not sporadic”opportunity for intercultural and intergenerational dialogue, a concrete and significant contribution for all those who are interested in the enhancement of the Nuorese Nobel Prize, not only in the school or university context”.

And the schools were the protagonists of”Grazia Deledda, a woman who put no limits on women”, an event that saw the active participation of the students of the Ciusa di Nuoro Institute and the Tortolì Hospitality Center who played a decisive role in organization of an event which, in addition to the greetings of the institutional authorities, saw the alternation of artistic, musical and literary performances, and testimonies linked to the world of journalism.

On stage, among others, Gavino Murgia and a poignant Piero Marras took turns who dedicated the unpublished song “In cada domo” to Grazia Deledda. Finally, the story of the Sardinian journalist Mariangela Pira, the face of SkyTg24, is particularly touching, who in connection from Milan recalled with great emotion her travels to Afghanistan, the cruelty of child brides and the tragedy of a young woman burned as a legacy of a culture which denies any form of freedom and dignity to women.