After a deep analysis of the several works in competition, the jury members stop their attention on the work of Dino Coltro “Paese perduto” ed. Bertani – Verona. The favorable judgment is unanimous.
In his work (four big volumes) Coltro reveals a deep love for his subject, a kind of love that comes from experience, from a deep, constant and direct relation with the rural people of Veneto, whose life and traditions he tells with exemplary meticulousness.
What convinces in his research more than the scientific analysis (however extremely punctual) is the achieved ambition of giving back the meaning and value of a culture all consider already dead, not only through the subsidies of sociology, but also those of the language.
In his books (and we haven’t forgotten Coltro as narrator, poet and man of school) the rural civilization proposes itself, in this age lacking of values, as extremely alive and lasting.