On August 22, 2004, Arturo Esposito, founder of the Penisola Sorrentina Award, died during a vacation in Salento. A special tribute will be paid to him during the international event scheduled for next October in Sorrento
Napoli, August 21st, 2024 – On August 22nd, 2004, Arturo Esposito, founder of the Penisola Sorrentina Award, died of a stroke. He was on vacation in Gallipoli, a famous and renowned tourist destination in Puglia. The history of the prestigious national event, which is now approaching its thirtieth edition, is inextricably linked to the history of its founder, who will be given a special tribute on the twentieth anniversary of his death during the works scheduled in Sorrento at the end of October.
Arturo Esposito was a poet and teacher. He was always inspired by the two peninsulas of the South: the Sorrento Peninsula and Salento. The Municipality of Tuglie, in the province of Lecce, on the initiative of his intellectual friend Antonio Rima, has published his last book of poems.
Arturo Esposito, after his youth between Nocera Inferiore and Irpinia, married in Piano di Sorrento where he lived until his death. He was the first to sense, at the end of the twentieth century, the opportunity to permanently link a cultural event of national value to the name of the Sorrento peninsula.
It was he who founded, in the mid-90s, a poetry competition that bore the name of the land of sirens, the Sorrento peninsula that during the nineteenth-century ‘grand tour’ had inspired travellers, storytellers and painters of beauty.
In the 2000s, the prize he founded began to open up to other themes, to offer days of study that concluded with a prestigious award ceremony. And then came the encounter with other places and other regions including Liguria and Puglia.
First in Sorrento and then in Piano di Sorrento, the award brought the elite of Italian and international culture. Famous poets such as Maria Luisa Spaziani, the muse of Nobel laureate Eugenio Montale whom he affectionately called “The Fox” or Michele Sovente, winner of the “Viareggio”, or Giovanni Raboni, the main exponent of Lombard poetry.
Arturo Esposito invited important Italian intellectuals and academics to the jury:
Antonio Piromalli from the University of Cassino; Emerico Giachery, general secretary of Arcadia, the famous Academy that in 1690, around the figure of Christina of Sweden, was founded by Gian Vincenzo Gravina and Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni; Giuliano Manacorda; Alberto Frattini, a distinguished scholar of Leopardi; Vittoriano Esposito, one of the leading experts on Ignazio Silone; Francesco D’Espiscopo, a critic among the leading scholars of Alfonso Gatto; Renato Filippelli, professor at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University Institute in Naples; Sirio Guerrieri, a poet from the Ligurian line, and Ninny Di Stefano Busà, a poet from Milan.
In 2004, after his death, the organizational helm passed to his son Mario, a journalist and cultural manager, with the honorary presidency of his brother Mario, Prefect of the Republic and Director of the Higher School of the State Police (who also passed away in 2018).
The Award, no longer linked to poetry, has now transformed into a real brand of productions and events appreciated by the nation, with different sections and awards for theater, cinema, television, music, literature.
The main event consists of a spectacular format for TV and is produced by the Municipal Administration of Sorrento. It is also part of the calendar of promotional events of the Film Commission of the Campania Region as well as the General Directorate of Cinema and Audiovisual of the Mic.
But who was Arturo Esposito?
Born in Nocera Inferiore (SA) in 1942, he died in Salento, in Casarano (LE), in 2004.
A student of Carlo Salinari and Roberto Mazzetti, a graduate in pedagogy, he taught in primary school, dedicating himself to the world of childhood also through pedagogical studies.
Numerous essays and articles published on social and literary issues, including: ‘Universo e società nella poesia contemporanea’(Universe and society in contemporary poetry) , ‘Droga, famiglia, scuola e società’ (Drugs, family, school and society), ‘Alfabetizzazione’, ‘Emarginazione, famiglia e società’ (Marginalization, family and society), ‘Giacomo Leopardi: frammenti di luce, di fede, di speranza’(Giacomo Leopardi: fragments of light, of faith, of hope).
For poetry he published ‘La Voce dell’anima‘(Voices of the Soul), Cannarsa Publisher, preface by Vittorio Vettori.
The Municipality of Tuglie, in Salento, published in 2008 the posthumous collection “Porto con me Gallipoli“(Bringing with me Gallipoli) containing the unpublished texts of the adoptive poet from Sorrento and Salento.
His poetic texts are also present in specialized volumes, including the series ‘L’altro Novecento‘(the Other Twentieth Century), published by Vittoriano Esposito for Bastogi Editore and the History of Italian literature ‘L’eredità letteraria'(The Literary Heritage), Esselibri – Simone, edited by Renato Filippelli.
For the cultural value of his activities he obtained from the President of the Republic the Diploma of Merit with silver medal and the honors of Knight and Commander of Merit of the Italian Republic.
