Of course

Literary Competition | 10th Edition

Short Story Section | Poetry Section

I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, to confront only life's essential facts, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I didn't want to live what wasn't a life, unless it was absolutely necessary. I wanted to live deeply, to suck all the marrow out of life, to live like a rugged Spartan, to destroy everything that wasn't life, to mow wide and low, and then to put life in a corner, reduced to its simplest terms.
Henry David Thoreau,  Walden, or Life in the Woods, 1854

What nature? What do we want, or would we like, to return to? Is it truly a return to nature that we desire, or is it living naturally in this day and age?
Driven by consumption, we forget what surrounds us, including the relationship humans have with nature and with our own nature as human beings. Weren't we social animals? Weren't we always drawn to connecting with others, to recognizing ourselves in them? What is our nature today? What is our environment, our ecosystem, today?
Are we so blind as to think we can live in a world devoid of beauty, destroying the very ecosystem that first allowed us to survive and then to live? That ecosystem without which we couldn't speak of human civilization today.
What are we really thinking?

The Jury, composed of:

• Alfonso Giordano, Professor of the Sustainable Development course – LUISS Department of Political Science,
• Cesare Pozzi, Professor of Business Economics – LUISS Department of Business and Management,
• Amelia Pollicino, Lecturer at the LUISS Writing School for Television,
• Antongiulio Calenda, a LUISS student and winner of the 2012–2013 competition in the poetry category,
• Rosaria Gimmelli, a LUISS graduate and representative of LUISS LabGov – the Laboratory for the Governance of the Commons,

after evaluating all the submissions, selected the following works:

Short Story Category

Winner

• Solanum Lycopersicum by Alessandra Rotondo

Honorable mention

• Burning by Maria Russo
• “La città di note” by Olga Piro      

Poetry Section

Winner

• “Bagno notturno nelle terme marittime dell'isola di Kos” by Filippo Cordovani

Honorable Mention

• Una donna by Francesco Andreini       
• Dubbi come uniche certezze by Nicole Genovese     

LUISS Cultural Activities thanks you for your participation.