Festivaletteratura kicks off

The Mantua Festivaletteratura, the great festival of books that has enlivened the city for 28 years, opens today in Mantua and will last until next Sunday. This year's international guests will include Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, Pulitzer Prize 2024 winner Nathan Thrall, Booker prize 2023 winner Paul Lynch, Carol Ann Duffy, Maaza Mengiste, Mona Awad, Emmanuel Carrère, Olivia Laing, Deborah Levy, Tobias Wolff, Peter Burke, Jessa Crispin, Michael Ignatieff, David Quammen, Richard Sennett, Elif Shafak, Hisham Matar, Kapka Kassabova, Georgi Gospodinov, Sorj Chalandon, Colum McCann, Dipo Faloyin, Emmanuel Iduma. Among the Italians Mariangela Gualtieri, Itala Vivan, Uoldelul Chelati Diran, Helena Janeczek, Federica Manzon, Ida Travi, Lella Costa, Paola Caridi, Michele Mari, Maria Pace Ottieri, Maria Grazia Calandrone, Antonio Franchini, Francesca Melandri. More than three hundred people came from various countries to meet readers and listeners.

The festival is set to be like last year's, when it returned to pre-covid levels, and has a similar budget: '1.6 million euro, 10% financed by public bodies, 18% by ticket sales, 20% by bank foundations, and the remainder by around 120-130 sponsors,' explains Alessandro Della Casa, coordinator of the festival's organisational secretariat.

A number of initiatives started in the last edition continue: the meetings for teenagers and the horizontal lectures: not only the lectures in the large squares but also workshops, 'school workshops' in which a group of 30 35 people have the opportunity to work with guest authors. In addition, this year some activities will take place in neighbourhoods where the event did not arrive before: in Valletta Valsecchi a comic strip workshop will be held - in fact, 7 comic strip artists have been invited who will collect stories from the neighbourhood to arrive at a collective tale; while in Lunetta a 'creative geography camp' will be held to imagine together new ways of using spaces.

At the Casa del Mantegna, where meetings for children take place, a number of Italian museums have been invited to create interactive paths on the theme of science and art.

Among the topics that will be discussed in the meetings are wars and democracies, the confrontation between generations, family relationships, Africa beyond stereotypes, the languages of Italy and vanished peoples, bestiaries and artificial intelligence, and even video games. To those who ask doubtfully why a literary festival should dedicate space to video games, Della Casa replies: 'It is a reflection on how gamification is entering into non-gaming areas, such as education and work. We are going to have a meeting that will be a very critical reading of how the reward mechanisms of passing levels are upsetting more classic labour relations and relationships. Other meetings have been created with the teenagers who work with us during the year".