-Essay- TURIN — In recent years, we have learned to question the solidity of the distinction between novel and essay. That is due in part to the popularity of autofiction, a genre that has lately seen great masters in Walter Siti, Annie Ernaux and Jon Fosse. This transformation was particularly evident in the last Strega Prize (the most prestigious Italian literary award), where none of the five finalists were purely fiction. But this is a new phenomenon: less than two decades ago, at the release of Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah, there was a very heated debate about which side of the border betwe…