Tonino Ledda

The figure of the poet Tonino Ledda from Ozieri is important for framing the phenomenon of the rediscovery of poetry and prose in the Sardinian language through literary prizes.
It was he who founded and launched the Ozieri Prize in 1956, still today one of the most prestigious literary competitions “in limba”. In the decades following the Second World War, in particular after the start of the so-called 'Renaissance', the modernization of Sardinia proceeds in forced stages. This impetuous process also involves the lowest strata of the population, convinced to abandon their mother tongue to embrace modernity conveyed in Italian. Poetry in the Sardinian language enters into crisis and risks being marginalized as an anthropological phenomenon of a society “lagging behind in development”. Many people react to this state of affairs (just think of Antonio Simon Mossa). One of the most productive is Tonino Ledda, who began the season of literary awards with Ozieri, which for several decades will become the driving force behind the literary renewal of the Sardinian language. The intellectual is the son of emigrants and has suffered on his skin the denial of his mother tongue already in his own home. The contradiction is only apparent: language in this way is not an ethnic heritage, but a conscious and elective choice, which expresses the reaction to the dominant homologation. Francesco Masala wrote of the language of Tonino Ledda's poetry that “it is naturally and deliberately simple and humble but is instead loaded with a

high lyrical potential.”

Update

4/3/2025 - 19:36