Image: Frankfurter Buchmesse Guest of Honor Italy
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Some 50 Literary Events, 21 Professional Program Events
In releasing today (September 3) its programming plans for Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 16 to 20), the Guest of Honor Italy organizers open stressing numbers.
This is the second time Italy has been the show’s guest of honor in 36 years, as Publishing Perspectives readers know. This time, that entail some 50 literary events, 11 debates on current affairs, 19 “witnesses of time” cultural-observation sessions; 21 professional program events; and nine events organized by the regions of Italy.
A group of 91 authors is expected to be involved, and it’s likely that at least that many people have been engaged in planning the guest of honor program’s concepts, branding efforts, programming, participants, and presentations for the better part of a year. A guest of honor turn at Frankfurt is a complex negotiation of a national market’s interests, concerns, priorities, politics, cultural traditions, and aspirations.
Raising the guest of honor market’s profile on the world’s trading stages of international translation and publication rights is a fundamental driver, one insight into which will be an exhibition of 600 books translated from German into Italian on the guest of honor pavilion designed by the piazza-master architect Stefano Boeri.
Innocenzo Cipolletta
Today’s emphasis is on a literary program, however which Innocenzo Cipolletta, president of the Association of Italian Publishers (Associazione Italiana Editori, AIE) says , “reflects the richness and total autonomy and plurality of the Italian publishing industry.
“It has been defined as a result of ongoing dialogue with publishers and authors,” Cipolletta says, “with the aim of making us even better known abroad. That’s why, from the outset, we wanted Italians to meet noted German writers and journalists, who will moderate a large number of the meetings. The program may also be enriched by new events proposed by writers who have made requests in recent months and with whom we are in constant dialogue, in a spirit of the utmost openness.
“The same openness characterizes the professional program which, based on the Italian experience, draws comparisons with the best voices in international publishing.”
Mauro Mazza
Rome’s specially appointed extraordinary commissioner to the Guest of Honor Italy project, Mauro Mazza, with the release today of the guest of honor programming details, says, “I’m particularly proud of the program we’re presenting for Italy’s participation as guest of honor at Frankfurter Buchmesse
“We’re bringing a ‘dream team’ of authors and speakers to the temple of world publishing, to arouse interest, curiosity, and debate on the state of Italian culture.
“I’d like to stress the broad scope of our program, which is free of any hierarchy between literary genres. It’s characterized by encounters open to different and sometimes distant opinions, experiences, and generations. I’d like to thank the authors, proposed by the publishers, who have accepted our invitation. I’m also convinced that the contribution of the ‘witnesses of time’ will further enrich Italy’s participation in the Frankfurt Buchmesse, allowing us to celebrate our culture in all its facets.”
Selected Highlights From the Program
Violinist Francesca Dega performs at the 2023 guest of honor handover ceremony, 2023, the honor moving from Slovenia to Italy. Image: Marc Jacquemin
The programming developed by the Italian guest of honor planning team will be set both at the Italian Collective Stand in Hall 5.0/A22 (which has its opening at 11 a.m. on Frankfurt Wednesday, October 16) and in the Arena and Caffè Letterario sections of the Guest of Honor Italy pavilion on Level 1 of the Messe Frankfurt Forum building.
Because of the size and scale of the Italian program, we’ll just hit several highlights in this article from October 16, 17, and 18—Frankfurt’s trade visitor days—and direct you to the guest of honor program’s site, this link being the one for an English version of the program schedule in PDF. An interactive edition of the schedule is anticipated for the site soon. The program is also expected to be available on the new Frankfurt Connect site soon. Registration for Frankfurt Connect is now open at this link.
All times listed here are CEST, for Frankfurt.
October 16, 9 to 11:30 a.m. (Professional Program)
Hall 4.1
From Italian to the World
An Annual Conference Dedicated to Translators From Italian
Hall 4.1
- The Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino presents the annual conference “From Italian to the World” in a special edition promoted in collaboration with Frankfurter Buchmesse and AIE and with the support of Italia Ospite d’Onore 2024 at the Frankfurt Book Fair and ICE – the agency for the promotion abroad and the internationalization of Italian companies. The project, curated by Ilide Carmignani and aimed at translators from Italian to all the languages of the world, was born in 2021 with the aim of presenting every year a vast selection of Italian books yet to be translated.
- Speakers : Juergen Boos, president and CEO of Frankfurter Buchmesse, with Emanuele Di Giorgi , Annette Kopetzki , Monica Malatesta , Michael Reynolds , Ana Rodado , Susanne Schüssler. With: Annalena Benini, Vincenzo Latronico Beatrice Masini
October 16, 10 to 10:50 a.m. (Literary Program)
Guest of Honor Italy pavilion, Forum, Level 1
Inauguration of the Italian Pavilion: The Beauty of Words
- Can life be lived in the pursuit of beauty, through its narration and dissemination? And what is the profound essence of this idea, so universally resonant yet deeply personal? Italy’s program in Frankfurt begins with a dialogue between those who have examined beauty through the lens of philosophy and those who have articulated it through literature.
- With Susanna Tamaro and Stefano Zecchi. Moderated by Luigi Mascheroni (journalist)
October 16, 12 to 12:50 p.m. (“Witnesses of Time”)
Guest of Honor Italy pavilion, Arena, Forum Level 1
Between Notes and Words
- Just 20 years old, pianist and singer Frida Bollani Magoni is one of the freshest talents in contemporary Italian music. This is about an encounter on the relationship between notes and words, between reading (in Braille) and writing, between perfect pitch and a passion that overcomes every barrier.
- Speaker : Frida Bollani Magoni . Moderator : Adriano Monti Buzzetti (Center for Books and Reading)
October 17, 10:30 to 11:20 a.m. (Literary Program)
Guest of Honor Italy pavilion, Caffè Letterario, Forum Level 1
In Search of the Great European (and Italian) Novel
- Americans know it well: labels may be annoying, but they often work. Proof of this is the editorial success of the “great American novel,” the one that many authors on the other side of the Atlantic dream of writing and many readers (and critics) around the world wait to read. And what if we needed something like this in the Old Continent (and in Italy?). Writer (and keen observer of the publishing world) Vincenzo Latronico and professor, historian and author of La letteratura intorno Gianluigi Simonetti discuss it.
Moderator : Maike Albath (Deutschlandfuk Kultur, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit).
October 17, 12:30 to 13:20 p.m. (Professional Program)
Italian Collective Stand, Hall 5.0/A22
Italian Publishing Goes Abroad: Not Just Rights
- How the presence of Italian authors and publishers in international markets has changed. Not only through the sale of rights but also in terms of conditions, export of books and subsidiaries abroad. The results of the survey conducted by the Italian Publishers Association on the sale of publishing rights and internationalization.
- In collaboration with ADALI.
- Speakers : Sandro Ferri (Edizioni E/O), Andrea Ferro (Casalini Libri), Roberto Gilodi (Reiser Literary Agency / ADALI) and Fiammetta Giorgi (Mondadori Libri). Moderator : Porter Anderson (Publishing Perspectives)
October 17, 5 to 5:50 p.m. (“Witnesses of Time”)
Guest of Honor Italy pavilion, Arena, Forum Level 1
The Duties of Culture
- The task of culture in the present era. Between duties and rights, values and ethics, pluralism and intolerance. The ghosts of the 20th century and the ideas of the future.
- Speakers : Francesco Borgonovo , Giacomo Marramao and Marco Tarchi . Moderator : Tommaso Ricci
October 18, 10:30 to 11:20 a.m. (Professional Program)
Italian Collective Stand, Hall 5.0/A22
The Excellence of the Italian Supply Chain in the Design and Printing of High-End Books
The Italian Paper and Graphics Federation is the industrial association that in Italy represents in an innovative and integrated way the companies that operate in the book production chain—from the production of paper, to the printing and finishing of editorial products. In this seminar, we will address the specificities that characterize the high-end book market segment (from the coffee table book, to the art catalogue to the various illustrated books) and explain why the Italian supply chain also excels in these processes.
- Presented by the Italian Federation of Paper and Graphics.
- Speakers : Emanuele Bandecchi (Rotolito SpA), Sandro Berra (Grafiche Antiga), Emanuele Bona (Federation of Paper and Graphics) and Alessandro Nardelli (Cartiere del Garda-Lecta Group SA). Moderator : Michela Pìbiri (PRINTlovers)
October 18, 1:30 to 2:20 p.m. (Literary Program)
Guest of Honor Italy pavilion, Caffè Letterario, Forum Level 1
A Beautiful Madness, Maximum Alert
Poetry, like thoughts and other things in nature, happens in the shortest time, without any particular knowledge, it totally questions the existing, it is self-fulfilling and remains secret even when it’s understood. Precisely because of its language it’s not called to give explanations of itself, but instead it’s an invitation for anyone to cross that open field of every lived and living experience where “there is no centimeter / that cannot collapse / from one moment / to the next.” Laura Accerboni and Marko Miladinovic are not even sure whether the floor is left or not, but they know no other way than this special attitude, this sublime claim of the word, to live freely.
- Presented by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Speakers : Laura Accerboni and Marko Miladinovic
More from Publishing Perspectives on Italy and its book publishing industry is here, and more on the Italian Publishers Association (AIE) is here. More on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, more on its guest of honor program is here, and more on Guest of Honor Italy 2024 is here.