The words change the world with the literary competition "OMPHALOS LGBTI"

Dialogue of Katya Parente with Roberto Mauri

Telling and telling each other is something fundamental to build one's own self and interpret what surrounds us. In a mainstream society, approved and uniform like the one in which we live, minorities have even more need because it gives them the opportunity to create and "feel" their own world.

For the lGBTQ Community this possibility is also given by "OMPHALOS lGBTI" Literary competition. It is with us to talk about Roberto Mauri, who of Omphalos is the secretary as well as the coordinator of the Culture Group, who has actively organized the event.

When was the "Omphalos LGBTI" literary prize born?

We thought of creating a space in which anyone could make their thoughts available in literary form during the Covid pandemic. The first edition of the "OMPHALOS Literary Competition“He then took shape in 2023.

Why do you believe it is important to tell each other and tell the LGBTQ world?

Giving the possibility to each and each of telling each other and telling the community of which it is part allows to avoid any overdetermination. We continue to believe that any minority and every singularity can be told by anyone, even by those who are not part of it, but we believe it prevalent that everyone has the opportunity to tell of themselves and space, values, opportunities in which you live. LGBTQIA+ people are historically always told by others, and usually with a certain sufficiency when not with contempt. It is time to bring out the world seen with our eyes, our singularity, our contradictions, the entirety of our nature.

In decreeing the winners will you privilege the emotional impact or the stylistic component?

The jury of the competition, chaired by Caterina Coppola, first takes into account content which, however, must be accompanied by a correct form. In the two editions there have been very rich texts from the literary point of view but a little weak on the level of content, and others who were almost political posters of the community but written in a slightly too elementary way. Fortunately, among others, there were also texts written with good content competence and with a certain narrative ability. I would say that the sum of the two is essential.

You have also opened the competition to teenagers. Why this choice?

We also opened the competition to boys and girls in adolescence because that is a period of everyone's life in which an expressive ferment is heard inside that is sometimes suffocated or delivered only to social media. We believe in the potential of boys and girls, we know their need to express themselves and their need to be listened to: we will not subtract us.

Following the competition there will be a publication?

Following the competition we thought of building an online page that collects the texts that won the various editions and those that seemed most significant to us. We should inaugurate it this year, with the texts that we considered the best in the first three editions of the competition.

We thank Roberto and invite the readers to put his hand to the pen, pardon on the keyboard, to tell and tell each other: the LGBTQ world is a colorful mosaic that needs to be told - if only to make it known beyond stereotypes and clichés!