Paul Auster, Carlos Fuentes, Amos Oz. Three undisputed masters of world culture are the finalists of the International Book Fair Prize, a recognition for authors who have been able to make literature an essential instrument of knowledge. Their names have been selected by the advisory board of the Fondazione per il Libro, aided by illustrious university professors specialised in different cultural areas such as the English language specialist Paolo Bertinetti, the German expert Luigi Forte, and the comparative linguist and Italianist Giorgio Ficara.

During the Fair, the world’s largest jury will vote: the publishers who take part in the event and the 300,000 visitors who every year pack the pavilions of Lingotto Fiere. Everyone can vote for their favourite author. You just need to show your ticket or pass in one of the six “polling booths”, electronic touch screen stations set up in each pavilion.

Voting takes place until 13.00 on Monday 17 May. The winner will be announced on Monday 17 May at 17.00 at the Arena Bookstock. The prize – a cheque of € 25,000 as a fee for the winner’s commitment – will be delivered in October in one of the locations of the Parco Culturale Piemonte Paesaggio Umano, between Langhe, Roero and Monferrato, where the winner will hold a series of meetings and lectures open to the general public, with particular attention to the students of secondary schools in the area.

Paul Auster (1947), a US citizen from Newark, has travelled and studied in Europe, especially in France, where he lived for three years. He started out as a poet. As a fiction writer he emerged in 1985 with City of Glass and the later Ghosts and The Locked Room which went on to compose his successful New York Trilogy. These were followed by Moon Palace, The Music of Chance, Leviathan, Mr. Vertigo, I Thought My Father was God, The Book of Illusions, Oracle Night, The Brooklyn Follies, In the Country of Last Things, Man in the Dark, up to the recent Invisible, all published in Italy by Einaudi. Since the late 1990s he has also spent much time on cinema, as a screenwriter (Smoke, Silver Bear in Berlin, and Blue in the Face, and as a director (Lulu on the Bridge and The Inner Life of Martin Frost). His fantastic New York is a “non-place” in which one can get lost and find oneself endlessly. Cleverly mixing genres, settings and styles, Auster has managed to give expression to a profound and secret soul of America, its obsessions and its ability to come to terms with itself.

Carlos Fuentes, born in 1928 into a family of Mexican diplomats, himself the ambassador for his country in France in the 1970s, a narrator, essayist, literary critic, screen-writer and journalist, is together with Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa is one of the writers who has brought Latin American literature to the attention of the world. In 1987 he was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the highest recognition for a Spanish language author. His novels include The Death of Artemio Cruz, Aura, Distant Relations, The Orange Tree and Inez . “Certain moral and material traits of his characters represent the tragic roots of our countries” wrote Julio Cortázar. Among his essays: Geography of Novel, a literary autobiography, Against Bush and Cervantes o la crítica de la lectura. An enthusiastic lover of art and cinema (we recall his friendship with Luis Buñuel), Fuentes is also the author of biting articles against the worrying drift of globalisation or the dangers of xenophobia.

Amos Oz was born in Jerusalem in 1939 in a family of Russian origins. At fifteen he went to live in a kibbutz. Today he teaches at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. His books draw deeply on his strong relationship with these lands, in an examination that is sincere to the point of cruelty. They talk about the people of Israel, its upheavals, and the splendid natural scenarios that constitute its soul. They sound out family, friendship and love relations with a special sensitivity for the female world. He is the author of novels, essays and books for children, among which are Don’t Call it Night, Suddenly in the Depth of the Forest, A Tale of Love and Darkness (a family saga covering four generations), Fima, Black Box, The Same Sea, Rhyming Life and Death.