The 18th edition dedicated to the theme Il Viaggio/Journey. Guests of the 2023 festival Massimiliano Virgilio, Igiaba Scego, Vanessa Roghi, Hari Kunzru, Katie Kitamura, Joshua Cohen, John Banville.
Article Key Points
Le Conversazioni, the international festival conceived by Antonio Monda and Davide Azzolini after the meetings in New York and Rome, returns to CAPRI with the great protagonists of contemporary culture.
The special guest of this 18th edition will be Lorenzo Jovanotti for the first time at the Capri festival.
The first three appointments will be held at Villa San Michele in Anacapri (at 19 pm) with the Italian writers Massimiliano Virgilio (25/6), Igiaba Scego (26/6) and Vanessa Roghi (27/6).
From Wednesday 28 June, as usual, the festival will move at sunset (19 pm) to Piazzetta Tragara, for a special appointment with Lorenzo Jovanotti who will open the meetings with the international guests: Hari Kunzru (29/6), Katie Kitamura (30/6) Joshua Cohen (1/7) and John Banville (2/7).
The theme chosen for 2023 is Il Viaggio/Journey which will be addressed in every possible meaning and Monda will share the different aspects with all the guests of this edition.
“We are happy and proud to have reached the eighteenth edition of the Conversations. With Davide Azzolini we started in Piazzetta Tragara in 2006, almost for fun. Today the festival has grown and we are proud of its international dimension that in addition to Capri has involved and involves cities such as New York, Washington, Bogotá, Rome, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Venice and Paris. And from 2024 we plan to extend the Conversations to Los Angeles as well.. – explains Antonio Monda – Over the years, Nobel, Pulitzer, Booker, National Book Award, Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Strega and Pritzker prize winners have participated, and in these days in Capri there will be other important international guests.
A journey that has lasted seventeen years, which we want to pay homage to with the theme chosen for this edition of the 'Journey', expressed with the utmost freedom of interpretation: understood as tourism or as emigration, as a journey of childhood to be cherished and protected and interior of memories or characterized by an artistic journey, from the pleasure of the solitude of the journey without the aid of technology to that shared with one's love. Bon Voyage to everyone with Le Conversazioni.”
On the occasion of the Capri events, the guest protagonists have written their own contribution for the Festival on the theme of the year. The texts will be read by the authors themselves and distributed to the public at the opening of each event.
THE MEETINGS PROGRAM
Appointments at Villa San Michele – Anacapri (19pm)
On Sunday 25 June, the 18th edition of Le Conversazioni in Capri will be opened by Massimiliano Virgilio, an Italian novelist, screenwriter, documentary maker and radio author. He has written several novels, including L'americano (Rizzoli, 2017) and Le creature (Rizzoli, 2020), both winners of several international literary awards. In 2021, he received a nomination for the Nastri d'argento for the story of the film Rosa, Pietra, Stella. His latest novel is Il tempo delle stelle, published in 2023 by Rizzoli.
On Monday 26 June, the festival will host the Italian writer and journalist, of Somali origin, Igiaba Scego, who mainly deals with issues of migration and African cultures and literatures. Among her novels, My Home Is Where I Am (Rizzoli, 2010) won her the Mondello Prize in 2011 and The Color Line (Bompiani, 2020) won the Naples Prize in 2020. Her latest book, Cassandra in Mogadiscio (Bompiani, 2023), is a candidate for the 2023 Strega Prize.
Closing the events at Villa San Michele, Tuesday 27 June, will be Vanessa Roghi, an Italian historian, television author and writer who deals in particular with issues related to the history of the school and new generations. Among her most recent books are Eroina (Mondadori, 2022) in which she addresses the problem of drugs, and Mia patria sono gli oppressi an illustrated story by Don Milani, just published by Momo (May 2023).
Appointments at Piazzetta Tragara – Capri (19pm)
From Wednesday 28 June the festival returns as every year to Piazzetta Tragara where Lorenzo Jovanotti, interviewed by Antonio Monda, will tell his story through the theme of Il Viaggio/Journey.
On Thursday 29 June, the British novelist and journalist Hari Kunzru, author of The Imitator (Einaudi, 2003), for which he was named one of the best young British writers by Granta, Leela's Dance (Einaudi, 2007), Notable Book of the Year for New York, and My Revolutions (Einaudi, 2011), will be in conversation with Monda and the Capri audience. In 2013, his story Memory Palace was the subject of a performance created by numerous illustrators, graphic designers and typographers for the public at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. His latest work, White Tears, was published in Italy by Saggiatore in 2018.
American writer Katie Kitamura will be the protagonist of the meeting on Friday 30 June. Author of Gone to the Forest and Knock-out both finalists at the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, respectively in 2012 and 2014. Among her best-known novels published in Italy by Bollati Boringhieri are Una separazione (2017) and Tra le nostre parole (2022) finalist at the National Book Award and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize in 2021, it was named by the New York Times among the five best novels of the same year.
The American author Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer Prize winner in 2022, will be the protagonist of the conversation on Saturday, July 1. He was defined by the New York Times as “one of the most important American writers” and “an extraordinary researcher in prose, certainly one of the most prodigious American novelists” by the New Yorker. He received the Matanel Prize in Israel in 2013 and in 2017 he was named among the best young American writers by Granta. Author of the novels published in Italy by Codice Edizioni Un'altra occupazione (2018), Libro dei numeri (2019) and I Netanyahu (2022) with which he won the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction in 2021 and earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 2022.
John Banville, Irish novelist and journalist, winner of the Man Booker Prize, will close the festival on Sunday 2 July. Also known by the pseudonym Benjamin Black, under which he has written five novels. His book The Explanation of the Facts was a finalist for the Booker Prize in 1989, published in Italy by Guanda (1991), while The Sea won the Man Booker Prize in 2005 (Guanda, 2006). In 2011 he received the Franz Kafka Prize. His latest novel is The Doubt of the Killer (Guanda, 2022).
New York and Rome
The 18th edition of Le Conversazioni opened in New York with a series of meetings, from February to June 2023, with Leslie Jamison, Judith Thurman, Mary Karr, James Kirchick and Annette Insdorf.
The Italian program started from ROME with Nadia Terranova and Mattia Feltri (June 20 and 21) protagonists of the meetings at Palazzo Merulana, home of the Elena and Claudio Cerasi Foundation, a lively and dynamic center of cultural production between literature, cinema and art, in the heart of the capital.
Next fall, the New York guests, protagonists of the meetings at NYU and the New York Historical Society, will be Maaza Mengiste, Molly Haskell, Michael Barker and Oscar winner John Patrick Shanley.
The general program of Le Conversazioni once again confirms the strong identity of a widespread festival that spans various cities and nations. An indefatigable laboratory of ideas which today has over 280 guests and which, since 2006, has organized events in New York, Washington, Bogotà, Rome, Naples, Capri, Palermo and from next autumn also in Milan and Paris.
Many names of protagonists of international culture who took part in past editions of Le Conversazioni, including: Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith, Jeffrey Eugenides, David Foster Wallace, Martin Amis, Ethan Coen, Michael Cunningham, Ian McEwan, Chuck Palahniuk , Salman Rushdie, Paul Auster, Patrick McGrath, EL Doctorow, Jonathan Safran Foer, Joshua Ferris, David Byrne, Colum McCann, Michael Chabon, Elizabeth Strout, Donna Tartt, Hanif Kureishi, Nicole Krauss, Junot Diaz, Rachel Kushner, Don DeLillo, Erica Jong, Wole Soyinka, Patty Smith, Jamaica Kincaid, Marlon James, Fran Lebowitz, Vendela Vida, Dave Eggers, Helen Oyeyemi, Ian Buruma, David Mamet and many more. And among the Italians: Pupi Avati, Claudio Magris, Alessandro Baricco, Mario Martone, Paolo Mieli, Alessandro Piperno, Roberto Saviano, Paolo Sorrentino.
Le Conversazioni 2023 is produced by Dazzle Communication, Spigoli and CPW Conversations, with the patronage of MiC. The Festival is supported in Rome by Intesa Sanpaolo and Enel as Official Sponsors, in Capri by Persol and Generali as Official Sponsors, with Hotel Punta Tragara as partner and Repubblica media partner.
The meetings of Le Conversazioni are presented in collaboration with Palazzo Merulana, Villa San Michele and the City of Capri.
CONVERSATIONS 2023 | the program of the next appointments
CAPRI
Villa San Michele – 19.00 pm
Sun 25/6 Maximilian Virgil
Mon 26/6 Igiaba Scego
Tue 27/6 Vanessa Roghi
Piazzetta Tragara – 19.00 pm
Wed 28/6 Lorenzo Jovanotti
Thu 29/6 Hari Kunzru
Fri 30/6 Katie Kitamura
Sat 1/7 Joshua Cohen
Sun 2/7 John Banville
NEW YORK
NYU–New York University
Wed 20/9 Maaza Mengiste
Fri 27/10 Molly Haskell
Thu 2/11 Michael Barker
Thu 7/12 John Patrick Shanley
Article published on 22 June 2023 - 10:30
