Closes «Evaluna» in Piazza Bellini Naples loses the library-cenacle

by time news

twelve o’clock, 19 March 2021 – 15:55

Lia Polcari: “Rent of the restaurant not renovated now initiatives on the web”

of Natasha Festa


The interior of the library in recent years

Piazza Bellini, closes the Evaluna bookshop. There is no other way to say it: the curtain falls on a collective, cultural and social page of the city. For days, its founder Lia Polcari has been packing an almost thirty-year history – the bookshop would have turned 28 in May – in boxes while giving away the furnishings that have been the setting for hundreds of literary meetings, presentations, concerts, exhibitions, performances, cycles on everything. human knowledge, from psychoanalysis to science, from poetry to theater, from music to astrology. Not only. Evaluna, in addition to being a garrison of gender culture, has been a lively and hospitable landing place and reference for writers and artists, students and tourists, passers-by and permanent residents. Everyone has been there: from Giulio Einaudi to Banana Yoshimoto, from Judit Malina to Renzo Arbore and Marco Pesatori, all the Neapolitan cinema from Corsicato to Martone. And then: Stefano Benni and Amelie Nothomb, all the Neapolitan writers from Erri De Luca and Maurizio de Giovanni to Valeria Parrella and Diego De Silva …

Lia Polcari and Giulio Einaudi, shot by Giudo Giannini
Lia Polcari and Giulio Einaudi, shot by Giudo Giannini

Lia Polcari, why is it closing?
«The owner of the place has decided not to renew the rental contract anymore. I could have started a lawsuit that who knows how long it would last. After a year of pandemic I decided to close everything and then start again in better times. It is a stop without complaining, without recriminations and without frustration: this is not a time of withdrawal. I am already thinking about the future in perspective ».

What will be?
«Evaluna closes its physical headquarters but will continue to exist as a brand and association that has always been involved in cultural organization. After the move, I will reshape the online program. We’ll see”.

A “room all to oneself on Zoom” to make a contemporary extension of a Virginia Woolf title.
«Beautiful and appropriate definition. The limit of physical distance becomes an advantage with the demolition of territorial boundaries: I give an example. Every Sunday I participate in a reading of theUlisse by Joyce organized by Massimiliano Bianchi who teaches literature in Dublin: people from Milan to Palermo, from Berlin to Paris to the United States are connected with me. Closure can become an opening towards the world ».

A book is needed for the story of Evaluna. But at least stories by Giulio Einaudi.
«I opened the bookshop in 1993, after graduation. As a freshman I had been an agent for Einaudi. When the great Giulio came to Naples, a mutual friend, Gustavo Festa, took him to the bookshop. He looked around and with a full smile said: “How much potential in this place”. He liked everything: the square and the interior with that welcome made of books and evocative objects that are my passion and that of my sister Rosi. By chance Guido Giannini passed by and took those photos … ».

With Intra Moenia by Attilio Wanderling, Evaluna has occupied a piece of topography, subtracting it from decay. Literary cafes were reborn.
«There was also“ 1799 ”: in the meantime the restructuring of the square was proceeding. We have always tried to dialogue with the inhabitants even with the most problematic fringes and sometimes we have succeeded. We have never been to Feltrinelli, a commercial bookshop that must present the writer of the moment, sell the book and then everyone at home: here we stayed, ideas and intellectual partnerships were born, we collaborated with other cafes and clubs as in a cultural village . It was a virtuous, self-sustaining process ».

She takes it well, but there is one fact: our grandchildren in Piazza Bellini will find one more ice cream parlor and one less cultural center.
«It is the food dictatorship. Before Covid, the center had already transformed into a large McDonald’s … ».

March 19, 2021 | 15:55

© Time.News


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