The recognition goes to the debut novel Variazioni sul tema (Solferino). This is the third literary award received for the book, after the Iannas Prize and the Laura Grasso Prize for LGBTQIA+ literature, thus confirming Martino Giordano as one of the most promising voices in the new Italian narrative.
Martino Giordano is the winner of the Premio Giovane Promessa della Letteratura Nazionale (Young Promise of National Literature Award) 2026, awarded for his debut work Variazioni sul tema, published by Solferino Libri in 2025. The recognition was conferred during the 45th edition of the Incontri con l’Autore “Mimmo Minuto”, a historic literary review promoted by the cultural association I luoghi della scrittura APS.
The award ceremony took place on the evening of July 14 at the Palazzina Azzurra in San Benedetto del Tronto, where the author met the public and received the plaque that consecrated him as one of the most interesting emerging voices in the Italian literary scene.
Born in Palermo in 1997, Martino Giordano graduated in Literature from the University of Palermo, lived a year in Prague, and studied at the Scuola Holden in Turin, the city where he lives and where he obtained a master’s degree in Comparative Literature, after a period of studies in France. In 2017, he began a transition journey as a non-binary person.
With Variazioni sul tema, Giordano tells the story of two lives destined to intersect. Lidia, a young and talented cellist from the Conservatory of Palermo, is faced with the choice between a musical career and a gender transition that would finally allow her to feel like herself. In Prague, Leo, on the other hand, navigates a daily life marked by loneliness and the search for a new balance. Two stories that chase each other between Palermo and Prague, addressing themes such as identity, freedom, the desire for belonging, and love.
With the awarding of the Premio Giovane Promessa della Letteratura Nazionale, now in its twelfth edition, the association I luoghi della scrittura reaffirms its attention towards young authors destined to stand out in the landscape of contemporary Italian narrative.
This is the jury’s motivation for awarding the 2026 prize to Martino Giordano:
«For the skillful, engaging, and original construction of the narrative framework, which manages to develop in an organic and coherent way two stories that only appear to be independent of each other but which, on the contrary, tend to converge towards an ending that is both unexpected and surprising. For the sensitivity and clarity with which the author has addressed an extremely complex, harsh, and impactful theme, that of sexual identity, restoring it value, dignity, and truth. For the way in which he has managed to give shape, substance, and credibility to the characters, whose feelings and emotions emerge with delicacy but, at the same time, with intensity and suffering. For the linearity and fluidity of the style, capable of reaching both high peaks of poetic expression and of describing with realism and sincerity actions, places, and sensations, without neglecting details and evoking in the reader a strong and immediate sense of empathy».
For further information about the award and its roll of honor:
