On December 3, 2014, Cultural Activities announced the two winners of the tenth annual literary competition for LUISS students: Alessandra Rotondo in the Short Story category with Solanum Lycopersicum, and Filippo Cordovani with Swimming at night in the thermal baths on the island of Kos in the Poetry category. The topic of the competition this year, Naturally, was inspired by Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau, and asked participants to reflect on the relationship humans have with nature and with the environment that surrounds them, as well as on the nature of human beings themselves.
"I read the contest topic and the idea fascinated me, but I wasn’t seriously thinking about participating until the moment when I handed in my application at the library. I wrote the story the night before the deadline!" Alessandra Rotondo is a LUISS graduate student in Science of Government and Public Communication, and says that the idea came out of everyday life, of a girl confronting the little inconveniences of daily life," from her difficulty in entering the world of work to complicated personal relationships. I believe that it is better to face the constant newness of life alongside the person that I love, even if it makes the game even messier: this is what I was trying to convey in my story."
Alessandra chose a simple title, the scientific name for a tomato, because "I don’t like descriptive or evocative titles: the limited space of a short story is the ideal size for expressing yourself without frills."
"Writing,” continues Alessandra, “is the form of expression in which I truly recognize myself. It helps me to focus things: clarity and analytical alertness are some of the ways I can keep the complexity of the world around me at bay."
Filippo Cordovani, on the other hand, is from Bibbiena, "in the middle of the Casentino valley, in the province of Arezzo" and he moved to LUISS not long ago, to attend his first year of the bachelor’s degree program in Economics and Management. "I was surfing the university’s web site and I saw the contest. I had a great story to tell and so I said: Why not!"
He was inspired by an experience he had last summer, right after graduating secondary school, on the last night of a vacation with a group of friends on the Greek island of Kos: "We found ourselves atop a promontory from which you could descend only by foot to arrive at a beach: easy during the day but at night, in the dark … not so easy! From the coast there is a trail of rocks that form a large circle in the sea, and there is a hot spring."
Filippo explains that in his poem he was trying to describe the sensations and feelings he had at that moment: "I had never written anything before and the challenge intrigued me. I was trying to talk about something that might capture reality as much as possible and at the same time be captivating, that’s why I used words and images that were really simple and understandable."
Alessandra and Filippo won a € 350 gift certificate to spend at Arion bookstores. "I am using it to buy books that I can use for my thesis," says Alessandra. "I participated in various cultural activities over the past few years at LUISS and now that I am at the end of this journey, after my bachelor’s and master’s degree, I like the idea of saying good-bye to my university with this small victory."