Millicent Marcus Wins Nonfiction Bridge Book Award

Millicent Marcus, Sarai Ribicoff Professor of Italian Studies, won the Bridge Book Award for her book Italian Film in the Present Tense (University of Toronto Press, 2023).

Marcus’s book won in the category of Best American Non Fiction for its exploration of Italian cinema in the 21st century.  

Italian Film in the Present Tense “contests the widely held perception of a medium languishing in its ‘post-Fellini’ moment,” wrote the Bridge Award jury, “and instead acknowledges the ethical persistence and forward-looking currents of Italian cinema in the present tense.”

The Bridge Award recognizes four books of nonfiction and fiction from Italian and American writers.  The four winners are awarded a contribution to the costs of translating their work into English or Italian, and are invited to awards ceremonies in Rome and New York.

The Bridge Award was established in 2015 by Maria Ida Gaeta and Maria Gliozzi to encourage cross-cultural knowledge, promote the Italian language, and make available “some of the best and most recent publications of both fiction and non-fiction in the two countries.”

Marcus’s research specialties include medieval literature, Italian cinema, interrelationships between literature and film, and representations of the Holocaust in post-war Italian culture.