Pulitzer Center Update

'Fractured Lands' Wins the 2017 Marco Bastianelli Award

Civilians fleeing Basra. Image by Paolo Pellegrin. Iraq, 2003.

Civilians fleeing Basra. Image by Paolo Pellegrin. Iraq, 2003.

Pulitzer Center grantees Paolo Pellegrin and Scott Anderson were recently named the 2017 recipients of the Marco Bastianelli Award for Best Photography Book for the Italian edition of their photo book, “Fractured Lands,” or “Terre Spezzate.” The prize was awarded on the 29th of May in Rome and has previously been given to Italian books that “highlight leaders in photography” and exemplify the “high quality of the editorial project,” as well as explore what it means to effectively use photography, art, and design. It is the 13th year that the prize has been awarded. 

In the award announcement, the jury panel praised the authors,  

“Scott Anderson’s literary reportage reminds us of how fragile the fabric of civil society is. Paolo Pellegrin takes a series of trips to the Middle East and through his reportage tries to understand the Arab Spring. From these two visions, one literary, the other photographic, a great descriptive power is born in the book “Terre Spezzate.”

“Terre Spezzate,” published in Italy by Contrast, was adapted from an unprecedented New York Times Magazine issue that centered around exploring the Arab world’s descent into conflict and chaos. The reporting and photography follows different individuals living in various parts of the Arab world including an Egyptian Arab Spring activist, a Syrian student, a women's rights activist, an air force cadet, a Kurdish fighter, and a captured ISIS militant. Anderson's reporting took place over 18 months of work in the Middle East and dives deep into the lives of his subjects as different aspects of conflict unfold around them. The photography included are galleries from photographer Paolo Pellegrin, and were taken over the course of his travels in the region during the last 14 years. The result is a book that captures the complex regression of a region into upheaval from the start of the Iraq war to today’s Syrian refugee crisis.