2024-02-28 18:56:22
by IDA BOZZI
From 9 to 13 May the first edition directed by Annalena Benini. Elizabeth Strout opens, Nobel Gurnah among the guests. «We will give space to all sensitive issues by creating places of meeting and never of conflict»
It is inspired by a title by Natalia Ginzburg and opens with a lectio by Elizabeth Strout: the first presentation of the 36th Turin Book Fair took place at the Teatro Regio in Turin in the edition in which the editorial direction of Annalena Benini debuts, who it placed emphasis on female and literary themes, on young people and on the diversity of voices.
With the theme «Imaginary Life», inspired precisely by the title of an essay by Ginzburg, a Salon that has a triumphal season behind it will return to the Lingotto from 9 to 13 May: last year, in the last edition directed by Nicola Lagioia, it had 215 thousand visitors compared to 168 thousand in 2022 (+27 percent), and 961 publishers compared to 839 in 2022 (+14 percent).
«Numbers that tell – began Silvio Viale, president of the Turin Association, La Città del Libro – a great international exhibition: in Italy there is a large number of cultural events and the book event is the most representative. There is a need to work together, the Show must be perceived as a common good, not only by the institutions but by the territory. Of course, the location is not cutting-edge, and this is not a complaint but an invitation to participate.”
In this regard, the contract for the Lingotto headquarters still lasts for this year; on the sidelines, Viale stated: «But we will extend it, we will open a table. For the rest, however, to manage an event with these numbers, we have to face very high costs. We have many investments to make and we need to involve the whole territory.”
After the memory of Ernesto Ferrero, director of the Show until 2016, who passed away on 31 October 2023, the other institutional partners of the Show took place on stage: the mayor Stefano Lo Russo, the regional councilor Vittoria Poggio on behalf of the president of the Region Piedmont Alberto Cirio; and again Alessandro Isaia, general secretary of the Turin Foundation for Culture; Alberto Anfossi, general secretary of the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation; Andrea Varese, general secretary of the Crt Foundation; Dario Gallina, president of the Turin Chamber of Commerce and Tiziana D’Amico, head of Intesa Sanpaolo’s artistic and cultural partnerships.
A novelty will be the host language (not the country): it will be German, with writers from Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. The guest region will be Liguria for the first time, represented on stage by president Giovanni Toti: «The Greeks had the verb agorazein, to go to the square; we will set up the square of a Ligurian town and we will bring a wide range of culture from the great writers to Fabrizio De André”. He recalled that “numbers are not everything” Giulio Biino, president of the Circolo dei Lettori Foundation: “There are many book fairs and festivals, but in May everyone comes to Turin.”
The BookStock for the little ones will also return with the program curated by Maria Giulia Brizio, as well as a large Salone Off which turns twenty. And after the announcement of the opening of the ticket office on the site (with an offer that will offer two tickets for the price of one for today, tomorrow and Monday), Annalena Benini, excited, talked about her Salon: «Imaginary life, the theme of my first Salon, is the title of a beautiful book by Natalia Ginzburg published in 1974 and recently republished. That essay is very important to me because it shows how imaginary life moves creative life, and often predicts what happens in real life. The present is what the Salone wishes to convey in the best possible way, with attention to the quality and diversity of voices: we want to pay homage to imaginary life, which has everything inside, literature, art, melancholy, precision, written words, the rumors and also the hopes. I think Ernesto Ferrero would have liked this year’s title too.”
The new poster created by Sara Colaone is connected to the atmospheres of the theme, which represents a woman reader, surrounded by clouds inhabited by readers. «It will be a show full of life, movement and women», underlined the director. «I bring my personality, my passions, the distinctive brand will be what I love to read and listen to and meet. But this is not solitary work, it is team work.”
And here are the first proposals of the event, which will open with Elizabeth Strout and her lecture “on women and their space in the world”. Of the seven sections into which the event is divided from this year, Benini announced the first events (“I will announce the others on March 26, at the second presentation”): for the Art Section, the curator Melania G. Mazzucco will propose a dialogue with the writer Alexandra Lapierre; for Cinema Francesco Piccolo will meet Paolo Sorrentino; for Publishing, Teresa Cremisi will meet Antoine Gallimard; for information, the curator Francesco Costa will talk with Jill Abramson, the first woman to direct the «New York Times».
And again: for Leggerezza, curated by Luciana Littizzetto, the memory of Marcello Marchesi in dialogue with Gianni Morandi; for Romance, curator Erin Doom will meet another bestseller, Mercedes Ron; and for the Novel Section, the curator Alessandro Piperno will dialogue with Domenico Starnone. Other guests anticipated yesterday, the Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, the bestseller David Nicholls, the writers Guadalupe Nettel and Camila Sosa Villada and the bestseller Jeff Kinney.
On the controversies of the past and the burning issues of the present, Benini, who greeted Lagioia (“whom I thank and respect”), responds calmly: “I feel like saying that everything is going freely and magnificently.” And he concludes: «We will give space to all sensitive issues. With the editorial staff we are building panels overlooking the world, on the conflict in the Middle East and beyond: the Salon will talk about a complex world always through literature and life, with the vocation and intention of creating places of meeting and never of conflict »
February 14, 2024 (modified February 28, 2024 | 7:56 pm)
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