LA BACCANTE
The ‘La Baccante’ literary prize was established at the First International Women’s Fiction Festival in 2004. Each year, the Women’s Fiction Festival Association, together with Harlequin Mondadori, the WFF main sponsor, awards the prize to either a famous woman writer or a woman active in the field of publishing. This year, the Women’s Fiction festival ‘La Baccante’ prize goes to Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett, in recognition of her work in the field of women’s fiction, particularly in Spain and Europe.

Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett was born in Almansa in 1951 and has lived in Barcelona since 1975. She has a degree in Literature and Modern Philology and taught Spanish literature for thirteen years. After successfully publishing several novels, she gave up teaching to dedicate herself full-time to writing. Before her big best-sellers, Ritos de Muerte and Dias de Perros, Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett published a number of books in various genres. Una Abitacion Ajena is the story of the tormented relationship between Virginia Woolf and her maid and it won Ms. Gimenez-Bartlett the Feminino Lumen prize for best woman Spanish writer in 1997. There followed the high-successful mystery series starring Inspector Petra Delicado, which has made Ms. Gimenez-Bartlett one of the country’s best-loved mystery writers. Her books are published by Sellerio di Giorgianni in Italian. Her Dog Days, translated by Nick Caistor, was published by Europa Editions.

- La Baccante 2005

- La Baccante 2004

In Greek mythology, the Bacchantes represented wild, mystical, uncontrolled and ferocious rapture , culminating in the practice of cruel rites. The Bacchantes were the priestesses of the cult of Dionysus, the symbol of occult knowledge and - above all - the incarnation of the natural principle of the psyche, instinct. It is indeed that very natural principle which, when released, possesses the spirit and produces art, dance, music and song.
This jewel Bacchante is the embodiment of the exact poetic opposite, and is meant showcase the Bacchante as the symbol of women, highlighting the role of women in culture.
Indeed, is it not part of the very essence of woman, the holder of the secret of life, to be associated with instinct? In my own mind, the Bacchante became not only the custodian of the mysteries of the cult, but also the bearer of the seed, represented by the ogival-shaped stone in the belly, the seed that indeed is already blossoming in the folds of the tunic, turning the woman into a flower, a flower however capable of holding her own life in her hands.
The form of the circlet refers to the classic shape of a travelling mirror.
At the end of a long, personal journal leading to deep knowledge of self and through the prism of art, women reattain their proper place in history.

Lela Campitelli
Goldsmith artist
Laboratorio Materia