The Campania Libri Festival returns on October 5th

International guests include Arriaga, Besserie, Markaris, Flatland, Vilas, Poladjan, Doyle, Bleutge and Lyacos. Preview on the 2nd with Benjamin Labatut.

After the success of the first edition, with more than thirty thousand attendees in four days, the Campania Libri Festival returns from 5 to 8 October, dedicated this year to Italo Calvino, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth.

Same place, the splendid setting of the Royal Palace of Naples, but with many significant new features compared to twelve months ago. Starting with the significant presence of the main Italian publishing houses that, together with their stands in the fair path set up in the courtyards, will animate the over 200 events, including presentations, debates, workshops and meetings, of a literary review that has ambitions and captures attention.

Funded by the Campania Region and organized by the Campania dei Festival Foundation, chaired by Alessandro Barbano and directed by Ruggero Cappuccio, the event, curated by the philosopher and university professor Massimo Adinolfi, is divided into four thematic itineraries (Words, stories, silences; In the heart of the present; Across the sea and far away; Other frequencies). All characterized by a different color (respectively green, yellow, blue and red), capable of chromatically accompanying the flight of our imagination.
“It's time to soar” is in fact the significant slogan of the new edition, to write the second chapter of a story that has just begun. A chapter that also this year has great international importance, as demonstrated by the participation of many writers appreciated in every continent and the presence of Juergen Boos, president and CEO of the Frankfurt Book Fair, the most prestigious literary event in the world, which will see Italy as guest of honor in 2024.

Among the foreign authors, many prestigious names in the publishing scene are expected at the Campania Libri Festival. The preview – on October 2 – is entrusted to Benjamin Labatut, the Chilean writer who, after the worldwide success of “When We Stopped Understanding the World”, returns to the bookstore with “Maniac”, the story of one of the greatest scientific projects of the twentieth century. During the days of the Festival there will be: the Mexican Guillermo Arriaga, one of the most powerful and original writers of contemporary fiction, known worldwide also for the screenplays of famous and award-winning films (“Amores Perros”, “Babel”) by Alejandro González Iñárritu; the French writer Maylis Besserie, winner, in 2020, of the Goncourt Prix for her debut novel “The Last Act of Mr. Beckett”; Petros Markaris, an internationally renowned crime writer who will be in conversation with Maurizio De Giovanni, in a double investigation involving Kostas Charitos and Commissioner Ricciardi; Jude Ellison Sady Doyle, an essayist and activist who is very popular in the Anglo-Saxon world and writes about queer issues, feminism and mass culture; Helga Flatland, a Norwegian author, one of the most significant voices in contemporary Scandinavian literature; the Spaniard Manuel Vilas, whose new book “Amor costanti” will be in bookstores in less than a week; his compatriot Irene Vallejo who, after the international bestseller “Papyrus”, is publishing “Il mio arco riposa muto. Il romanzo dell'Eneide”, on sale today; Katerina Poladjan, an author living in Germany born in Moscow to parents of Armenian origins, whose “La musica del futuro” we have read and appreciated in Italy.

No less rich is the array of Italian writers, including established authors such as Emanuele Trevi, Paolo Di Paolo, Igiaba Scego, Giorgio Falco, Matteo B. Bianchi, Francesca Giannone, Maria Grazia Calandrone, and new voices such as Aurora Tamigio, Gian Marco Griffi, Beatrice Salvioni, Monica Acito, scholars of great caliber such as Mauro Bonazzi, Paolo Giulierini, Vittorio Lingiardi, Enrico Malato, Andrea Graziosi and an extraordinary group of crime writers: Luca Crovi, Enrico Pandiani, Patrizia Rinaldi, Sara Bilotti, Serena Venditto, Luca Delgado, Piera Carlomagno, Giancarlo Piacci. And then again, among others: Nicola Campogrande, Claudia Durastanti, Gianni Solla, David Parenzo, Michela Monferrini, Emanuele Coen, Camilla Ronzullo, Corrado De Rosa, Carlo Vecce, Dario Ferrari, Gaia Manzini, Pasquale Palmieri, Marco Ciriello, Titti Marrone, Valerio Minnella, Tommaso Di Dio, Luca Briasco, Arnaldo Testi, Michele Zatta, Gianluca Cherubini and Marco Ercole, Boris Sollazzo, Carlo Rainone, Peppo Bianchessi, Pasquale Ferrara.

At the Campania Libri Festival you will also be able to see and hear some faces and names that are very popular with the general public: Mario Martone, Alessandro Cattelan, Antonio Latella, Father Enzo Fortunato, Luca Trapanese, Michele Reich, aka Zerocalcare, Josephine Yole Signorelli, alias Fumettibrutti, Salvatore Esposito, Peppe Servillo, Francesco Pannofino.

Particular emphasis is given to poetry, with an entire section, curated by Carmen Gallo, which will host, among others, the German poet Nico Bleutge and the Greek Dimitris Lyacos, author of a modern Odyssey in three volumes that makes him one of the favorites in the race for the Nobel Prize for literature. Among the Italians, we remember Milo De Angelis, Bruno Galluccio, Federico Italiano, Laura Pugno, Tommaso Di Dio and Marilena Renda.

A series of events, curated by Titta Fiore, will then be dedicated to the comparison between word and image in the audiovisual world; among the scheduled meetings, those with Carlo Verdone, Pupi Avati, with Mario Martone and Ippolita Di Maio, and with the screenwriters Ludovica Rampoldi, Valia Santella, Monica Rametta, Federica Pontremoli stand out.

Italo Calvino, whose “American Lessons” lend their names to the Festival halls, will be honored with a dedicated exhibition, curated by COMICON – International Festival of Pop Culture, which will also bring several meetings and workshop activities to Campania Libri; with the mise en espace, directed by Nadia Baldi, of “The Cosmicomics”, entrusted to 11 young interpreters; with the impossible interview by Silvio Perrella with the writer who died in 1985, and the readings by Alessandro Preziosi, Andrea Renzi and Simona Fredella. Finally, Francesco Palmieri will revive the wonder of “Malacqua”, a twentieth-century classic by Nicola Pugliese, loved by Calvino himself and considered among the most beautiful books written about Naples.
The Festival will instead dedicate a meeting to the figure of Gianni Vattimo, the famous philosopher who passed away yesterday, curated by Prof. Maurizio Ferraris.

Campania Libri Festival 2023 will also host the presentation of the nascent Circolo dei Lettori della Campania curated by the Fondazione Guida alla Cultura, a project that will come to life throughout the year to promote and spread the book-good as a vehicle for social aggregation, civil awareness and intellectual growth.

Alessandro Barbano, president of the Fondazione Campania dei Festival, will have the significant task of moderating “Fare cose con le parole,” a reflection on the theme of the relationship between the intellectual and public space, the true concluding act of the festival.
Also in this second edition, the Campania Libri Festival will host awards and ceremonies of national importance such as, at the opening of the Festival, the Matilde Serao Award, in collaboration with the newspaper Il Mattino, which this year will be awarded to the writer Melania Mazzucco; the Campania Legge – Fondazione Premio Napoli, with the presentation of all the finalists of the 2023 edition; the Elsa Morante Award, the Cimitile Award and the award ceremony of the project Adopt a philosopher + a scientist, now in its fourth edition, which involved thousands of students. As part of the Elsa Morante Award, the Festival will host Dacia Maraini, Roberto Mercadini, Marcello Cesena, Mattia Villardita, Cristina Fogazzi, Vincenzo Comunale, Roberto Colella, Ciccio Merolla.

Great participation also in the fair part of the event, with the courtyards of Palazzo Reale hosting the stands of the publishing houses, from the major Italian publishing groups to independent companies. In this regard, the Festival will also host a full program of meetings and presentations organized by the exhibitors, intended for the Cristallo and Fiamma rooms and downloadable online.

Finally, we must mention the collaborations. Starting with the patronage of Rai Campania, which will be present at the Festival with a discussion and event space, and the media partnership with Rai TGR and Rai Radio Live. Important and virtuous synergies are renewed or created with the Giffoni Film Festival, Salerno Literature Festival, Book Pride - Genoa (Italian Book Capital 2023), Ricomincio dai Libri, Città Noir, Napoli Città Libro, FLIP – Festival of Independent Literature of Pomigliano d'Arco, Goethe-Institut Neapel, Instituto Cervantes de Napoles, Institut Français de Naples, Royal Embassy of Norway in Italy, Academy of Fine Arts of Naples, University of Naples L'Orientale, University of Naples Federico II, Pegaso University, AIB - Italian Library Association, ORIENTAlife, Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Committee for the Safeguarding and Enhancement of Neapolitan Linguistic Heritage, and A Book Under the Stars.

Labs and workshops are planned with Amnesty International and Emons Edizioni, with the association Lo Cunto and its Mediterraneo Next and with Lalineascritta. Also arousing curiosity is Il Tritacarne, a literary experiment for those who want to submit their work to the judgment of an expert, Giulio Mozzi.

We would like to thank our sponsors, Gruppo Capri—which, with the Alcott brand, renews its partnership with the Fondazione Campania dei Festival after the Campania Teatro Festival—and Chin8 Neri, as well as our partner EAV, for their support and collaboration.
This year, in addition, Campania Libri Festival t-shirts and bags will be on sale, and the proceeds will be donated to AIRC.

Every detail on the individual events of the 2023 edition is available on the website campanialibrifestival.it