Five literary journeys in this anniversary-filled year of 2026

Travelling and reading are two activities that have gone hand in hand ever since the first book was printed in Mainz in the mid-15th century. This was the Bible produced by Johannes Gutenberg using the technique of movable metal type. It is in this very town in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate that the workshop of the inventor of the printing press has been reconstructed, and this could be chosen as a starting point. However, 2026 is above all the year in which we celebrate writers who have made travel and the discovery of places and cultures the very crucible of their writing, drawing from them the wellspring that has nourished their talent. Not forgetting Grazia Deledda’s Barbagia – as we mark the centenary of her Nobel Prize in Literature, the only Italian woman to have achieved this to date – and the poet Amelia Rosselli, who passed away three decades ago in her native Rome, here are five literary itineraries to embark upon in August for those who love reading, travelling and everything in between.