FESTIVALETTERATURA: an international literary festival in Mantua (Italy)

I’d like to talk to you about the international literary festival that will take place in Mantua. Five days full of cultural fun, of meetings with authors, readings, performances, concerts with artists from all over the world in a joyful atmosphere. The most interesting voices of the emerging literature and of the younger generation will be present. And Mantua is also a very beautiful, artistic city.

Mantua will be the right place fot all the lovers of literature next week. I would suggest some meetings with writers:

– Tracy Chevalier, : on Wednesdy 9 at17.30 

– Marcelo Figueras, an Argentinean writer: on Thursday   10 settembre h 21.00

– Kazuo Ishiguro, on Saturday 12 settembre at 11,15

– Martin Caparrós, an Argentinean writer:

–Javier Cercas, an Argentinean writer:

 The meeting with Mario Vargas Llosa,  Nobel prize winner in 2010 will close the festival.

For those who love, like me, Irish literature, I suggest  the event on Friday  11at 18,00 l “Scritture d’Irlanda”: with the Irish writer Joseph O’Connor.

There are many other interesting events during the Festival, so see the official program: http://www.festivaletteratura.it/it/2015/eventi

About Catherine Dunne

Just to inform you that the Irish writer  Catherine Dunne will be in Verona at Spazio Vibrisse on 26th of September to talk about her new book: “All that I’ve loved.” See my prevoius post about Catherine Dunne’s book.

WELCOME TO MANTUA’S FESTIVALETTERATURA

FESTIVALETTERATURA will take place in Mantua next week from 3rd to 7th of September. It has become one of the greatest Italian literary festival. Its first edition took place in 1997.

Internationally famous narrators and poet, the most interesting voices of emerging literature and of the younger generations of writers, essayists, musicians, artists will take part in FESTIVALETTERATURA.

One of the aim of this festival is to create a more direct connection between readers and writers, with new experimental ways of researching and exchanging experiences.

But there is another important reason to go the festival׃ to visit the city of Mantua with its squares, theatres, the interiors of the beautiful palazzos. Guided tours of Mantua’s historical and cultural heritage have been organized

FESTIVALELTTERAURA will offer poetry readings and public speeches, theatre performances, events in the original languages, brief meeting with famous authors.

Only some author that will be at the festival this year׃ Colm Toibin, Olov Enquist, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Annie Ernaux…

 

This is the link to the 2014 EDITION OF THE  FESTIVALETTERAURA http://www.festivaletteratura.it/index.php

 

VICENZA JAZZ, NEW CONVERSATIONS (10 -18, May)

Tags

jazz, Vicenza

Vicenza is situated in the Veneto region of northern Italy o, adn is worldwide famous for  its  Andrea Palladio (1508–80)’s works  which  give the city its unique appearance. Palladio’s urban buildings, as well as his villas, scattered throughout the Veneto region, had a decisive influence on the development of architecture. His work inspired a distinct architectural style known as Palladian, which spread to England and other European countries, and also to North America.

From 10^th to 18^th  of May, Vicenza will also be the city of jazz, with “Vicenza Jazz”  festival. http://www.vicenzajazz.org/it/protagonisti.php

The protagonists of the festival:  Henry Threadgill & Zooid,,Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico,,Trio Bob Mintzer-, John Abercrombie-Miroslav Vitous,The New Gary Burton Quartet,Enrico Pieranunzi Trio,We Three Gianluca Petrella & Giovanni Guidi, Pharoah Sanders Quartet,Mike Stern/Bill Evans Band,Enrico Rava Quintet, Earth Wind & Fire Experience feat. Al McKay, Ernst Reijseger, Al Di Meola & Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Ilhan Ersahin’s Istanbul Sessions, Balanescu Quartet,Jim Black & AlasNoAxis, Kevin Mahogany meets Massimo Faraò Trio, Luca Boscagin London Project, Rusconi, The Tommaso Cappellato Orchestra, Alessandro Lanzoni Trio, Alessandro Paternesi P.O.V. Quintet, Enrico Zanisi Trio, Simone Graziano Quintet feat. David Binney, M: modulazioni audiovisive, Apolide Quartet feat. Adam Nussbaum, Café Touba, Funk off, i locali del jazz, Delorean

Teatro Olimpico

Teatro Olimpico (by Andrea Palladio), La Basilica (by Andrea Palladio) and The city Theatre will be the main places of the festival. But jazz will be the protagonist  of Vicenza’s nights and the main theme suggested by restaurants and bars too where a lot of jazz groups will alternate. Just to mention one of them: JazzArt4et https://www.facebook.com/pages/JazzArt/196199540418348?fref=ts

HAPPY WORLD BOOK DAY!

Tags

World Book Day

It is a worldwide day of celebration of  books,  literature and  above all an invitation to share the pleasure of reading.

The 23rd April is recognised as being the date of the death of  William Shakespeare  and Cervantes.  April 23rd was designated World Book and Copyright Day by Unesco because it was seen as a symbolic date for world literature.   It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, K. Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.

The idea for World Book Day originated in Catalonia where, on 23rd April – Saint George’s Day (St Jordi) – a rose is traditionally given as a gift for each book sold.

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away (E.Dickinson)

WAITING FOR THE WORLD BOOK DAY

Tags

World Book Day

23rd of April 2013

I do appreciate the special section the Spanish newspaper El Pais  is dedicating to the World Book Day on 23rd of april.

It is going to reserve a special supplement to the event – “Día del libro 2013” – till the 24th of april: articles, interviews and suggestions by literary bloggers and writers. An invitation to share the pleasure of reading and also an opportunity to know new authors.

I found it particularly interesting the article by WINSTON MANRIQUE SABOGAL  on the contemporary Norwegian literature. Honestly,  I read Ibsen and Gaarder only  and I have known about a new generation of thriller writers, but it is not my favourite genre. The aim of the article is to make the reader informed about contemporary Norwegian narrative, which has a high literary and thametic quality :

“un grupo de escritores noruegos que siguen sorprendiendo al mundo por su alta calidad literaria y temática, acompañada de una crítica reflexiva.” (El Pais)

A useful list of the main important Norwegian authors to be known was provided too: Flogstad , Akjell Askildsen ,Dag Solstad, Herborg Wassmo, Per Petterson ,Karl Ove Knausgaard, Linn Ullmann, Roy Jacobssen, Lars Saabye Christensen.

The program of the “Día del libro 2013” will also include other subjects related to the world of book and literature: self-publishing, bookcrossing, literary blogging and reading suggestions by important writers.

I cannot but follow this special issues by El País and, of course, I will keep you informed about something interesting I have read.

And you, Have you read any Norwegian writer?

VINITALY: The International Wine and Spirits Exhibition in VERONA

Tags

Verona, Vinitaly

VINITALY

From 7 th to 10 th of April the 47^th Vinitaly – the international wine and spirits exhibition – will open in Verona. As the world’s oldest wine Exhibition (having been founded in 1967), it is today also the most distinctively innovative, even in terms of information technology.

The 2012 edition welcomed more than 4 thousand exhibitors over a show area of 95 thousand square metres, with 140 thousand visitors (more than 48,000 international from more than 110 countries). But it is not only about wine. It will be a great opportunity to discover  Verona and its surroundings as well as to take parts to various cultural events:  meetings, tastings and targeted workshops to encourage contacts between exhibiting cellars and trade operators, together with an impressive convention programme discussing and analysing topics associated with supply and demand in Italy, Europe and the rest of the world.

Verona -Italy

The theme of the off-show Vinitaly is  the “cultural  testing of excellent wines “ in the wonderful places of Verona.  There will also be “Vinitaly & the City“, a lively format offering an impressive programme specifically for lovers of good food and fine wine and dedicated to the large public.

Federico García Lorca, a poet in New York

Tags

Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca (1898-1936)

Federico García Lorca is one  of the Spanish authors I prefer. What has always struck me is his particular sensitivity  and innovative power. Though he died at  38 only, he was able to be a good pianist, an illustrator and above all a great poet and dramatist.

As The Independent reported on 26^th of March:

On 12 July 12, 1936, Spain’s most translated poet and playwright, Federico García Lorca, left the manuscript of one of his key works, Poet In New York, on the desk of his editor José Bergamín in Madrid with a handwritten note on top: “Back Tomorrow”.

But tomorrow never came. Instead of returning Lorca – part of the ‘Generation of ’27’, an avant-garde artists collective that included his friends Salvador Dali and film-maker Luis Bunuel – went home to Granada, where he was murdered five weeks later by General Franco’s death-squads as Spain tore itself apart in its three-year Civil War

On 5^th of April  at the Public Library in New York an important exhibition dedicated to Lorca will open.

WORLD POETRY DAY

Tags

Alda Merini, Juan Ramón Jiménez

World Poetry Day

Today is the World Poetry Day! Perhaps not so many people know that the World Poetry Academy creation took place in 2001 in Verona.  As explained in the official site: “Actually in this city which gave birth to the Latin poet Catullus, which welcomed Dante and let him finish his “Divina Commedia”, which inspired Shakespeare and which received Goethe, Dickens, Lord Byron and many other writers and artists, it was held the constitutive assembly of the World Poetry Academy” (http://www.accademiamondialepoesia.com).

Juan Ramón Jiménez

As a personal tribute to poetry, I would like post here two poems. The first is by the Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958) who was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature  in 1956 for his “poesia desnuda” (naked poetry):

Yo no soy yo		Yo no soy yo
I am not I. I am the one Walking beside me whom I do not see. Whom at times I visit, And at times I forget. The one who remains silent, calmly, when I talk, The one who forgives, serenely, when I hate, The one who goes where I do not come The one who will remain upright when I die.		Yo no soy yo.  Soy este  que va a mi lado sin yo verlo,  que, a veces, voy a ver,  y que, a veces olvido.  El que calla, sereno, cuando hablo,  el que perdona, dulce, cuando odio,  el que pasea por donde no estoy,  el que quedará en pie cuando yo muera.

Alda Merini

The other tribute is to a famous Italian poet Alda Merini (1931-2009) who was born exactly on 21 th of March 1931

Alda Merini

Amai teneramente dei dolcissimi amanti

senza che essi sapessero mai nulla.

E su questi intessei tele di ragno

e fui preda della mia stessa materia.

In me l’anima c’era della meretrice

della santa della sanguinaria e dell’ipocrita.

Molti diedero al mio modo di vivere un nome

e fui soltanto una isterica

translation:

Alda Merini

I tenderly loved some very sweet lovers

without them knowing anything about it.

And I wove spider webs from this and I always fell prey to my own creation.

In me there was the soul of the prostitute

of the saint of the one who lusts for blood and of the hypocrite.

Many people gave a label to my way of life

and all that while I was only an hysteric.

SELF-PUBLISHING, E-BOOK, SOCIAL READING AND THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING

Tags

e-books, publishing, reading

The world of publishing is changing more and more every day. And our habits are changing consequently. As a result, there is an increased diffusion of e-books, e-readers and tablets as well as self-publishing and social readings.

“If book then” is a meeting which will take place in Milan on 19th of March 2013 and is dedicated  to the future of publishing. They will analyze the new relationships between  authors and  readers as well as authors and publishers.

The event is organized by Bookrepublic and this year IfBookThen opens to a European synergy, thanks to a partnership with Sweden and Spain.

I’m wondering if and how new technology and devices have modified the creative process of writers.

Has our approach to reading changed too?

What do you think about?

For more details: www.ifbookthen.com