“PIU’ LIBRI PIU’ LIBERI”, the most important fair for small and medium-sized Italian publishing, will take place from 6 to 10 December at the Nuvola in Rome, founded in 2002.
The theme chosen for this edition is Nomi Cose Cities Animali. As in a children’s game, each author will be able to compose his own lexical category, so that by playing we understand that to be free in a community it is necessary to establish, and change when necessary, some rules. As children we play and learn to read and write. As adults we forget how important it is to live with play – but never for play.
Many Italian and international guests will participate in over 600 events including presentations, debates and readings alongside the almost 600 publishers’ stands during the five days of the Fair.
48 THOUSAND TITLES PER YEAR
In 2022, small and medium-sized publishing houses in Italy published 47,850 new releases, a slight decrease compared to the previous year (-0.6%) and equal to 59.3% of the overall editorial offer. There are 5,022 active micro, small and medium publishing houses, -0.9% compared to 2021. The market share in the trade channels (physical and online bookshops and supermarkets) in 2022 was 49.2%.
THE THEME: NAMES THINGS CITIES ANIMALS
The theme of the 22nd edition is the title of a children’s game. As children we play and learn to read and write. As adults we forget how important it is to live with play – but never for play.
N for NEW
There are many new features this year. The curator Chiara Valerio recounted the themes of the event in One letter leads to another, the podcast of Più libri liberi produced by pawsdiverse: six episodes, each dedicated to a letter from which we started to play Nomi Cose Città Animali and talk about books, publishing, new releases and great authors. The format is also new. A not always funny thing that I do every year, a real reportage from Più libri liberi, written and produced by Emmanuela Carbé. Furthermore, Radio Gridolini (Cloud version) created by Todo Modo arrives. A radio to tell what’s happening at Più libripiùliberi through interviews and insights, and starting from the principle that caution is the opposite of confidence and books are something not at all cautious.
A for CLOUD AUDITORIUM
This year too, events will be held in the Auditorium della Nuvola with the protagonists of the world of culture, entertainment, and information. The Lectio magistralis held by the classical philologist, Greek scholar, historian, and essayist Luciano Canfora on the topic of War and slaves in antiquity is highly anticipated. On the occasion of the release of the book by the Egyptian activist and researcher Patrick Zaki, the author will dialogue with Pegah Moshir Pour and Marianna Aprile. It’s called Paolo. The man who invented Christianity, the book and the Lectio magistralis by Corrado Augias. The presentation of the book by the historian Alessandro Barbero All’arme! is also highly anticipated! Alarm! Priors make meat! in which, through the chronicles of the time, the Ciompi revolt in fourteenth-century Florence is told, in dialogue with Giuseppe Laterza. War will also be the central theme of the meeting War Zones with Paolo Giordano, Francesca Mannocchi, Cecilia Sala, and the moderation of Marco Zatterin. Sabino Cassese, one of the most authoritative Italian jurists, will dialogue with Pietro Del Soldà commenting on the fundamental passages of the Constitutional Charter in the meeting entitled The words of the Constitution.
A for FOREIGN AUTHORS
Among the many guests of this edition, the Brazilian journalist, documentary maker and writer Eliane Brum, who will present her book Amazonia, is eagerly awaited. Another highly anticipated guest is Merlin Holland, the only direct descendant of Oscar Wilde who, together with Chiara Tagliaferri and Michele Masneri, will present the book Being the Son of Oscar Wilde written by his father Vyvyan Holland. The Mexican writer Brenda Navarro will meet the public together with Igiaba Scego on the occasion of the presentation of her latest book, Cenere in Bocca, in which she addresses delicate and painful topics such as social inequalities and the lack of roots. In addition to other authors, the Englishman A.K. Blakemore in the meeting on The Witches of Manningtre will take us to England in the 1600s in a community devoid of men, in which women are abandoned to themselves, with Nadia Terranova.
A for ITALIAN AUTHORS
Nei cinque giorni della fiera sarà possibile ascoltare e incontrare molti importanti autori italiani e assistere alla presentazione di speciali novità dai cataloghi dei piccoli e medi editori nazionali, a conferma della straordinaria vivacità della categoria. Per non dimenticare nessuno citerò solo i nomi, a voi scoprire nel programma i dettagli dei loro interventi: Erri De Luca, Andrea Camilleri con un reading inedito di Neri Marcorè, Laura Pugno, Adriano Sofri, Ferdinando Scianna, Antonio Gnoli, Melania Mazzucco, Giorgia Serughetti, Elly Schlein e Marco Damilano. Antonio Pascale, Vittorio Sgarbi, Antonio Rezza, Maurizio Landini, Roberto Gualtieri e Giovanni Maria Monica Giandotti. Edoardo Nesi, Marco Malvaldi, Antonio Manzini. Boris Sollazzo in dialogo con Alessandro Di Battista. Lo scrittore Marco Taddei e l’illustratore Michele Rocchetti in dialogo con Ginevra Lamberti. Michele Cocchi con Andrea Tarabbia e Lavinia Azzone. Giulia Caminito, Paolo Di Paolo e Alessandro Mari, Alice Urciuolo Marco Zatterin, in dialogo con Alessandra Necci. Stefania Limiti e Sandra Bonsanti, Roberto Scarpinato e Marco Lillo. Dalila Bagnuli presenterà insieme a Giulia Blasi, Guido Barbujani, Mauro Bonazzi, Luca Bottura, Luca Telese, Gian Antonio Stella e Massimiliano Fuksas, Giulio Caporaso di Giulio Rapetti Mogol, Piera Vitali, Dario Ballantini e Rita Pennarola. Massimo De Luca Vendruscolo, Alessandro Tiberi, Giulia Mombelli, Carlo De Ruggieri, Cristina Pellegrino e Pietro Sermonti. Wlodek Goldkorn. Tommaso Giagni, Marino Sinibaldi. Claudio Gregori (Greg), Lavinia Mancusi Giulia Ananìa e Alessandro Mannarino. Rossella Marangoni in dialogo con Maria Teresa Orsi e Lorenzo Gasparrini. Claudio Pallottini, Flavio Insinna e Carlotta Proietti, Andrea Pennacchi, Giuseppe Civati. Paolo Pellegrin, Newsha Tavakolian e Michele Smargiassi. Pulsatilla Francesca Reggiani Enrica Accascina Alessandro Orlandi. Benedetta Sabene, Michele Santoro Flaminia Saccà e Rosalba Belmonte, con gli interventi di Valeria Fedeli e Silvia Garambois. Giovanni Maddalena Mattia Ferraresi, Maurizia Calusio e Guido Baggio. di Massimo L. Salvadori Marco Damilano. Antonio Schiena Karma B e Annamaria Carbonaro. Gianluca Scroccu e Anna Tonelli Gianni Cuperlo e Marco Damilano. Armando Palmegiani, con Raffaella Notariale e Fiore De Rienzo.
R for ROME
The program includes a series of events that focus on the capital and its infinite stories. On the occasion of the publication of the audiobook of La città dei vivi Nicola Lagioia will speak about Luca Varani’s crime. Fabio Isman will present The Rome you don’t know. Journey into the secrets of the Eternal City, with Claudio Strinati, along new routes to get away from the usual itineraries and experience the taste of discovery. Franchino Er Criminale will talk with Giulia Crossbow and Mattia Tombolini starting from Me so magnato Roma, his guide to the popular food of the Capital. The fair will also be the moment to talk about the latest edition of the International Literature Festival in the meeting The Memory of the World and Other Stories with readings by the actress Anna Ammirati and the participation of Nadia Terranova, Simona Cives and Miguel Gotor.
P for WORDS
A series of meetings in which expert voices will discuss different points of view, to try to compose, through their own repertoire of words, a common meaning. As already announced, the Italian dialogue in Paris is highly anticipated, a meeting between Maria Grazia Chiuri, Artistic Director of the Dior women’s collections and Teresa Cremisi, publisher and writer, the current president of the Adelphi publishing house. The poet Vivian Lamarque, winner of the first edition of the Strega Poetry Award, will be introduced by Stefano Petrocchi and Nicola Lagioia and interviewed by Irene Graziosi in an event in collaboration with Lucy. With the hashtag #leparolevalgono the Treccani Italian Encyclopedia Institute aims to tell the story of the evolution of the Italian language through the texts of the new generation of artists. The meeting in collaboration with La lingua batte between the actor, screenwriter, director and writer Antonio Manzini and the linguist Valeria Della Valle is centered on The words of the novels, while on The words of the songs the one with the rapper Piotta in dialogue with the writer Ilaria Gaspari. Still on the centrality of language is the meeting with the director Marco Bellocchio who will dialogue with the writer Paolo Di Paolo in Le parole del cinema.
S for WRITERS TALKING ABOUT WRITERS
Writers who talk about other writers is a new formula proposed by Più libri liberi, created to better understand the writers we love through the lens of other writers, an operation that will allow us to discover fascinating aspects of them. Mario Desiatici will talk about Fleur Jaeggy, the Italian-Ghanaian writer Djarah Kan, Franzt Fanon and Joseph Conrad. Nadia Terranova will talk about Jane Austen and Gaja Cenciarelli on Margaret Atwood. Marina Pierri will bring us closer to Elena Ferrante while Carola Susani will tell us about Alberto Moravia. Viola Ardone on Julio Cortázar and Teresa Ciabatti on Joan Didion, and then again Vanni Santoni on Roberto Bolaño, Donatella Di Pietrantonio on Emmanuel Carrère. Finally, Serena Dandini will talk to us about Eve Babitz and Elena Stancanelli about Jean Rhys.
C is for CALVINO
A series of meetings is dedicated to the writer Italo Calvino, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth. We start with Calvino plus Calvino in which the author and activist Carlotta Vagnoli will discuss Calvino and the Resistance, the linguist and essayist Vera Gheno on Calvino’s language and the writer and playwright Marcello Fois on Calvino and the adventure. Calvino’s words is the Lectio by Matteo Motolese and then professors Andrea Prencipe and Massimo Sideri will present their book Il viscount cybernetico, putting Calvino’s teaching to the test of technology, in particular artificial intelligence and its implications. Reading Italo Calvino through the poetic word will instead be the theme of the presentation of the book Calviniana. In one way or another by Teresa Porcella and Andrea Calisi.
U for UTOPIA
From the fictitious name of an ideal country, coined by Thomas More in his famous book Libellus, the linguist Vera Gheno for La Language as utopia, the writer Cristina Marconi for Brexit as utopia, the writer and journalist Loredana Lipperini for Fantastic literature as utopia and the writer Vanni Santoni for Drugs as utopia. for PROFESSIONAL CENTER
The professional heart of the fair, it looks even more towards internationalization than in the past, in view of Italy’s participation as Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2024, the Business Centre, the area for professionals designed and managed directly by the Italian Publishers Association (AIE), in collaboration with Aldus Up, the European network of book fairs coordinated by AIE and co-financed by the European Commission as part of the Creative Europe programme. A total area of 500 square meters, made up of: the Business Center on the Forum Floor of La Nuvola with the Aldus Room, which will offer 26 professional meetings and debates; the Rights Center on Levels N4 and N5 which will host meetings with foreign operators in the first two days of the event; the B2B Club, which this year includes 22 companies in the supply chain, and the Lounge.
The calendar of professional meetings is busier than usual, inside and outside the Business Centre.
N for NEWSPAPERS
This year too, Più libri liberi will be the stage for meetings and debates with the protagonists of the information sector. Enrico Mentana and Dario Fabbri present the latest issue of Domino, World War Fronts, with the intervention of the authors of the issue. Alessandro Portelli asks himself what happened to the working class in our country and why the left is no longer its ‘natural’ point of reference in Dal rosso al nero, in dialogue with Annalisa Cuzzocrea and Marco Damilano. Marco Travaglio will also be at the fair in the meeting entitled A year of books to not forget, while Stefano Nazzi will introduce us together with Marino Sinibaldi to the new issue of Cose explained well dedicated to journalism in the meeting entitled Let’s definitely turn the page. Ex voto, is the title of Marco Petrucci’s collection of political posters, Testi Manifesti, presented with Giuseppe Civati. Finally, the fair will be an opportunity to present the 50th issue of Scomodo magazine and the new issue of The Passenger magazine, with Eleonora Vio, Chiara Comito and Wasim Dahmash.
La Repubblica will participate in the fair with its own Repubblica/Robinson arena which will host many meetings with prestigious names in journalism, culture and entertainment. Furthermore, every morning, students will be able to participate in special journalism lessons organized by the Repubblica@scuola editorial team. Participation is free without the need for reservations and the program will be available on the newspaper’s website www.repubblica.it. Added to this are the meetings organized by the weekly L’Espresso dedicated to urban spaces that encourage reading and creativity.
S for SCIENCE
An entire strip will be dedicated to science with Italian and foreign experts who will lead us along those paths of awareness of the rules of the world that allow the elevation of human consciousness with the writer and science communicator Licia Troisi and the astrophysicist Ersilia Vaudo Scarpetta, Carl Safina, Marco Motta and Gaja Lombardi Cenciarelli, Paolo Zellini and the philologist Piero Boitani, Maura Gancitano and Andrea Colamedici, Paolo Giordano and Stefano Mancuso with Fitopolis, The living city – Lectio Magistralis, which will reflect on how for too long we have placed ourselves beyond outside of nature, and how this determines the way we imagine our cities in the coming years. The mathematician Piergiorgio Odifreddi will introduce us to the maximum expression of freedom of thought with an exploration of the limits of reason in the meeting In small doses. Against the crisis of withdrawal from mathematics, with Marco Malvaldi and Roberta Miracapillo of La Scienza Coatta.
C is for COMICS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS
Also in this edition Più libripiù liberi pays particular attention to the world of comics and graphic novels. Lovers of the genre will be able to meet Zerocalcare, Serena Dandini, Gipi, Valerio Lundini, Valentine Cuny-Le Callet, Riccardo Noury, Paolo Bacilieri, Antonio “Sualzo” Vincenti, Vanessa Roghi, Stefano Disegno, Marco Aldrighi, Alberto Bugiù, Francesca Nicolini and Daniele Aristarchus
T for TEENS
Always one of the most dynamic sectors of small and medium-sized Italian publishing, literature for young people will be at the center of various meetings with authors. Più libri Junior, the literary game dedicated to students, is back again this year, which aims to stimulate and enhance the imagination and creativity potential of each competitor: this year’s title is “Nomi Cose Città Animali”.
U for UNIVERSITY
More books, more free 2023 is also enriched with a series of meetings dedicated to young university students on the in-depth study of academic topics
M for MICHELA MURGIA
The closing meeting of the fair will instead be dedicated to the memory of Michela Murgia. Michela liked mosaics, labyrinths, facets and even glitter and sequins, she believed in the individual, in self-determination, in people who all together, in a square, each with their differences, sang a protest or a common joy. She therefore liked the publications of small and medium-sized publishers, and she was an expected and desired presence at this fair. And it will be there again this year, in a different but equally awaited presence.
R is for REWARDS
The Strega Ragazze e Ragazzi Prize is awarded to fiction books for children and teenagers published in Italy, including in translation. Also at the fair is Leggiamoci, the platform dedicated to a community of reading and writing enthusiasts, promoted by the Center for Books and Reading, in collaboration with BPER. The awards ceremony for the winners of the Mastercard Literature and Mastercard Literature Esordienti Awards will be held during Più libri liberi. This year too, the winner of the Luigi Malerba Narrativa Prize 2023 will be announced. The award ceremony for the Tokyo-Rome Prize: words in transit will be organized by the Center for Books and Reading, with the award being presented to Aoko Matsuda. The IILA will award the Literature and Best Translation Award to the writer Selva Almada for literature and to Francesca Lazzarato for the best translation. As part of the Invictus 2024 Sports Literary Award, the presentation of the book Pantani per semper will also be held at the fair.
I for INSTITUTIONS
The collaboration between Più libri liberi and national and local institutions continues. The Center for books and reading, an independent institute of the Ministry of Culture, and the Lazio Region participate with a program of events. Even Roma Capitale with the Rome Library Institution renews its fundamental collaboration with the event, as does the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Teatro di Roma and Superintendenza Capitolina, the Chamber of Commerce of Rome and the prestigious presence of the Ministry of Education and Merit with a special event dedicated to school libraries. The Goethe-Institut and the Institut français Italia contributed to the cultural program. New to this edition is the MAXXI exhibition space.
P for PROFESSIONAL CENTER
The professional heart of the fair, it looks even more towards internationalization than in the past, in view of Italy’s participation as Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2024, the Business Centre, the area for professionals designed and managed directly by the Italian Publishers Association (AIE), in collaboration with Aldus Up, the European network of book fairs coordinated by AIE and co-financed by the European Commission as part of the Creative Europe programme. A total area of 500 square meters, made up of: the Business Center on the Forum Floor of La Nuvola with the Aldus Room, which will offer 26 professional meetings and debates; the Rights Center on Levels N4 and N5 which will host meetings with foreign operators in the first two days of the event; the B2B Club, which this year includes 22 companies in the supply chain, and the Lounge.
The calendar of professional meetings is busier than usual, inside and outside the Business Centre.nbsp;
MORE BOOKS TV AND SOCIAL
Confirmed again this year is Più Libri TV which will allow users to follow the most important events of the fair both live and on demand.
The fair is present on the web with the website www.plpl.it and with activity on the main social networks with videos and extra content. The official hashtag of the event is #piulibri23. The event app for iOS and Android devices will also be available from 2 November.
For more information about guests, tickets and the program visit the website.
Elena Cattaneo was born in Cremona and lives in Rome. As a teacher, editor and web reporter she looks at this city, even also many years, like a curious turist.
After a Foreign Language University Degree she specialized in Communication Science. She fully dedicated to Business Communication, her most relevant interest.
She cultivated several cultural hobbies, fond of art and human being expression.