At the 21st Thessaloniki International Book Fair, attendees are flanked by the large panels of an exhibition of illustrations from Bologna Children’s Book Fair and Bologna Book Plus. Image: BCBF/BBlus
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
See also: Italy Is at Thessaloniki’s Book Fair as Guest of Honor
‘Nearby Horizons’
During the weekend run ending today (May 11) of the 21st Thessaloniki International Book Fair, the Guest of Honor Italy program has had the benefit of exhibitions and programming from Elena Pasoli‘s Bologna Children’s Book Fair and Jacks Thomas‘ Bologna Book Plus.
As many of our readers will recall, Greece in 2023 became the first “market of honor” for the general publishing brand extension Bologna Book Plus, in an arrangement with the Association of Italian Publishers (Associazione Italiana Editori, AIE). Opened by then-culture minister Nicholas Yatromanolakis—whose articulate intent was “to know that Contemporary Greece does have its own voice.” Greek publishers, in fact, have been exhibiting at the 60-year-old Bologna fair, organizers say, for decades.
Pasoli’s Bologna fair is often part of an Italian guest of honor appearance, too, some of the relatively recent occasions being its showing in October 2024 at Frankfurter Buchmesse; the recent Salon du Livre de Paris; and the 2024 Taipei International Book Exhibition.
And in fact, Bologna is one of the most outgoing of fairs in the international book publishing industry, regularly partnering with other trade shows and events—as in the case of the new coordinated games areas it is inaugurating this year with Juergen Boos‘ Frankfurt Book Fair (October 15 to 19). Bologna and the United Arab Emirates’ Sharjah International Book Fair may be the shows most regularly seen working in cooperation with other similar events.
Programming Participation
From left, journalist Lambrini Kouzeli interviews Bologna Children’s Book Fair director Elena Pasoli and Bologna Book Plus chief Jacks Thomas as part of the programming presented in the Guest of Honor Italy agenda at the 2025 Thessaloniki International Book Fair. Image: BCBF/BBPlus
On Thursday (May 8), Bologna’s Pasoli and Thomas opened the Thessaloniki programming with professional presentations, in conversation with journalist Lambrini Kouzeli’s moderation for The Importance of International Book Fairs as Forums for Sharing Good Practice, Knowledge, Ideas, and Business Opportunities. If anything that’s an apt session for Bologna to offer Thessaloniki, still in its early 20s as a fair, while Bologna is almost three times as old.
On Friday (May 9), Deanna Belluti, who heads up illustration and translation events at Bologna, joined in on a program called From Bologna to Greece, From Greece to Bologna, with the Greek IBBY chapter general secretary, Angeliki Mastromichalsaki, and the organization’s treasurer, Panagiota Strikou.
As we mentioned last week on the opening of the fair, inside the Italian guest of honor pavilion—themed Orizzonti vicini, or Nearby Horizons —visitors have been able to admire the exhibition I colori dell’antico (Colors of Antiquity), organized by the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in collaboration with AIE as a review of Italian illustrators who have given new forms and new colors to the classical world, declining the strong appeal that ancient art still exerts according to classical and digital techniques and pop coloring—all of this in line with the frequent topic of the fair, the fact that Greece and Italy’s relations reach so far back into the ages.
And there were two other exhibitions: Hugo Pratt: l’eredità, l’opera, la biografia–curated by Patrizia Zanotti to pay homage through 27 large panels retracing his career; and Camilleri 1925-2025, which as part of Camilleri 100–created around the centenary of the birth of Sicily’s Andrea Camilleri, texts, images and quotes curated by Giovanni Capecchi.
Artists whose work was represented in the Bologna exhibitions include Sara Not, Camilla Pintonato, Fabio Visintin, Serena Viola, Desideria Guicciardini, Beatrice Bandiera, Daniela Spoto, Paolo D’Altan, Camilla Garofano, Lucia Scuderi, Rita Petruccioli, Alessandra De Cristofano, Daniela Tieni, Laura Fanelli, Alessandra Vitelli, Pia Valentinis, and Daniela Stamadiati.
The Bologna participation in the Thessaloniki Italian guest of honor was supported by Rome’s ministry of foreign affairs and international cooperation (ICE), the Italian embassy in Athens and the Italian Cultural Institute of Athens the Book and Reading Center, along with ITA, the Italian Trade Agency responsible for the promotion abroad and internationalization of Italian companies—all with the cooperation, of course, of AIE.
Some of the exhibition space provided for displays contributed to the 2025 Thessaloniki International Book Fair. Image: BCBF/BBPlus
More on the Thessaloniki International Book Fair is here, more on Bologna Children’s Book Fair is here. More on Bologna Book Plus here, more on the Italian book industry and market is here, more on the Guest of Honor Italy program at Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, and more on international book fairs and industry trade shows is here.