Book fair goers wait for entry at the 2024 Più libri più liberi in Rome, the publishers’ association’s 23rd annual show featuring books from small- and medium-sized publishers. The name, translated, means “More Books, More Freedom.” Image: AIE
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Cipolletta: ‘A Heritage That Must Be Supported’
Having closed on Sunday, organizers of Più libri più liberi—the “More Books, More Freedom” book fair dedicated to small- and medium-sized independent publishers—report today (December 9) that the show drew some 110,000 attendees to its programming and publishers’ book stands.
This was the 23rd edition of the show, which is produced by the Association of Italian Publishers (Associazione Italiana Editori, AIE).
It drew its crowds of attendees this year with one fewer public holiday than usual, and on the professional-program side, it logged around 700 meetings between some 1,200 Italian and international attendees. And these results are producing adamantly happy commentary from the program and the publishers behind it.
Innocenzo Cipolletta
In a statement issued for today’s news, AIE president Innocenzo Cipolletta says, “Più libri più liberi is first and foremost a great festival dedicated to those who read books, to those who make them, to those who write them, and thus to all those who love books. …
“And so many young people and so many writers around Chiara Valerio,” the show’s curator since 2022, “who with her work managed to return to the public all the energy, the passion, the strength of the ideas of small and medium Italian publishers, their commitment to the cultural pluralism that animates and innervates our country. This fair represents a heritage that, as we told culture minister Alessandro Giuli, deserves and must be supported.”
Valerio: Next Year’s Theme Is ‘Reasons and Feelings’
The queue outside La Nuvola in Rome, fairgoers waiting to get into Più libri più liberi. Image: AIE
The fair’s president is Annamaria Malato, and she tells the press today, “Our event confirms itself as an indispensable appointment for Italian publishing, and not only for small- and medium-sized publishers.”
Annamaria Malato
“As we’ve said from the beginning, we strongly believe in the value of listening and confrontation, which can always serve as a stimulus to reflect and possibly correct one’s mistakes.
“And we’ve seen this here in these meetings, in the dialogues, the speakers present, great Italian writers and intellectuals, many dedicated to women’s rights and all marked by a civil and constructive dialogue.”
Fabio Del Giudice, the director of AIE and the fair, says, “Più libri più liberi continues to grow and become, year after year, more and more relevant in the national cultural scene, giving visibility and centrality to the production of small and medium Italian publishing.
Fabio Del Giudice
“This is the task we were assigned 23 years ago, and this is what we’re doing.
“The most rewarding component of this work is connected to the enthusiasm and affection shown to us once again by the more than 110,000 readers who crowded the Cloud,” the convention center known as La Nuvola.
“My heartfelt thanks to all of them, to the publishers, fellow travelers in this wonderful adventure, to the institutions that have supported us since the beginning, but above all I would like to express all my admiration to Chiara Valerio for the professionalism and balance with which she has faced the difficulties of the last few weeks.”
Lorenzo Armando
Lorenzo Armando, president of AIE’s small publishers group, joins the chorus of approval, saying, “It’s with great satisfaction that we close a new edition of the fair, confirming the indispensable role of this unique event in Europe—a place where readers can find books and listen to a variety of voices that would otherwise struggle to be heard.
“For us publishers, it’s a celebration to meet our readers, but the fair was once again—thanks in part to a professional program that featured as many as 22 presentations this year—a key opportunity to engage with colleagues on how to deal with daily business challenges.
“That’s true especially since small and medium publishing came to this event after a year that saw increased difficulties in accessing the market, further urging us to look for new tools, channels and solutions.”
Chiara Valerio
And Valerio, the much-praised curator of the program, says, “If it’s true, as it is written in Jane Austen—whose 250th anniversary of her birth falls in 2025—that to desire means to hope, the theme of the next Più libri più liberi will be Reasons and Feelings, which then means trying to investigate, through books, the people who wrote them, and especially the people who read them: whether we are still able to desire and that is to hope and not only, as we also happen to do, to despair, all attached.
“From the first edition, under my direction, we brought the words; from this year’s we brought the measures; next year we will mix them to make us tell and to tell the reasons and feelings.”
We expect to learn more later this week in our Publishing Perspectives Rights Edition about how things went in the trading center high in “the Cloud” at this book fair.
Above the heads of the crowd at Più libri più liberi, the RAI sponsorship board’s slogan reads ‘Small- and Medium-sized Publishers, One Big Story.’ Image: AIE
More from us on the Italian market is here, more on Rome’s Piu libri piu liberi is here, more on the work of the Italian Publishers Association is here, more on Italy as this year’s Frankfurter Buchmesse guest of honor is here, and more on book fairs and trade shows is here.