TO February the event dedicated to contemporary publishing returns to Florence and its protagonists. From 24 to 26 February 2023, the Stazione Leopolda hosts the second edition of TEXT [Come si diventa un libro], the appointment on publishing organized by Pitti Immagine in collaboration with Stazione Leopolda.
TESTO tells how a book is born and how it gets into the hands of the reader. Three days to immerse yourself in a world of paper and words through a reasoned selection of books and novelties and thanks to a busy program of events, workshops, meetings and reading itineraries. To compete with the best publishing houses – there will be 107 at this edition, small, medium and large – with the protagonists of publishing and with the most interesting Italian and international authors.
Seven stations
In practice, the life cycle of the book is recreated inside the Leopolda through a journey through seven stations. Every station – the Manuscript, the Flap, the Translation, the Sign, the Story, the Library, the Reader – describes a phase in the life of the book: from the work of the writer, to that of editors, translators, graphic designers, promoters and booksellers, up to the reader.
The program of meetings and events is organized by curators, who play the role of Station Masters: Luca Briasco, foreign fiction editor, translator and minimum fax editor; Andrea Gessner, publisher of Nottetempo; Beatrice Masini translator, writer and division director of Bompiani; Leonardo G. Lucconedirector of the Oblique literary agency and publishing studio; Maddalena Fossombroni and Pietro Torrigiani, founders of the Todo Modo bookstore
The program of events and presentations
Among the international guests on the calendar, names such as Jessica Bruder, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett, Sheila Heti, Emir Kusturica, Jhumpa Lahiri, Amanda Lear Amelie Nothomb, Edward St Aubyn, Scott TurowMikhail Shishkin, Paul Lynch, Dale Maharidge, Itamar Orlev, Christoph Ransmayr, Ron RashJón Kalman Stefansson, Goran VojnovicEdward Wilson-Lee, and more.
Among the many Italian authors and guests involved: Niccolò Ammaniti, Daria Bignardi, Ginevra Bompiani, Carlo Lucarelli and Emanuele Trevi.
info: Text.PittiImage
1/ Books to read. So, war!
Why read it
One year after the invasion of Ukraine, the philosopher Bernard-Henry Lévy analyzes the real causes inflaming Eastern Europe.
Through an extensive report, made up of meetings and interviews with the highest leaders of the political hierarchies but also with the last ones, with those who suffer the war every day, Henri-Levy reports his own direct experience in the field, from the Ukrainian front to the streets of Kiev, Odessa or Zaporizhzhia.
“I returned from Ukraine again. I interviewed men who had lived hidden, for months, under steel avalanches; everyone, absolutely everyone, said that at no time had they thought of running away; who have never, ever lost faith in victory »he says. The book also laid the foundations for a new documentary that Levy will take around the world from the end of February.
A great connoisseur of Ukraine, Lévy already understood in 2004, at the time of the Orange Revolution, that this would be the decisive new frontier for Europe. And since then he has followed all the steps of the great game that has become a bloody war.
Info. Bernard-Henry Levyi. So, war! The ship of Theseus, 19 euros.
2/ Books to read. Tehran actress
Why read it
On the occasion of March 8, E/O Editions are bringing the books of five Iranian authors back to bookstores in a new edition: Tehran actress by Nahal Tajadod Disorientalby Negar Djavadi The illumination of the damson tree by Shokoofeh Azar, The man who snapped his fingersby Fariba Hachtroudi e Consolation Gardens by Parisa Reza.
Five women and five deeply different stories, but which together recount the thousand revolutions of a country without peace.
The protagonists of Tehran actress they are two women, two Iranians. The first, born after the 1979 revolution, and who has known only the Islamic regime, is a very successful young actress. The second, a renowned writer, grew up in the Shah’s Iran.
The girl tells stories from her childhood, the harassment suffered by family members as laymen and artists, career in cinema, the weight of censorship and interrogations by the Guardians of the Revolution. Her story testifies to an unknown Iran to the writer, who instead remembers the forced modernization of society at the time of the pro-Western monarchy of the Shah.
From the comparison of these two visions a fascinating novel is born, in a game of mirrors that helps to define the portrait of two women determined to assert their identity, their talent, and to experience the complex evolution of a country between contradictions and cultural richness.
The author was born in Teheran in 1960 into a family of intellectuals, Nahal Tajadod moved to France in 1977, before the outbreak of the Islamic revolution and the advent of the mullahs’ regime. Her husband is Jean-Claude Carrière, a well-known writer and screenwriter.
Info. Nahal Tajadod. Tehran actress. Editions E/O. 12.50 euros.
3/ Books to read. And so you want to talk about race?
Why read it
Protests against racial injustice have taken to the streets and inflamed millions of people around the world. The stakes for a transformative conversation about race couldn’t be higher.
The hard part is figuring out where to start: “How do you tell your boss that his jokes are racist?” “How do you explain white privilege to a white, privileged friend?”
In And so you want to talk about race? − among the best-selling books of 2020 by the New York Times, the year in which America was shaken by death of George Floyd and the global explosion of the movement Black Lives Matter − the writer and activist Ijeoma Oluo delivers a valuable and unique guide for tackling an informed and constructive discussion on racism.
Each chapter is a question that Oluo analyzes in depth and rationally, issues that typically emerge in daily interactions, whether they are raised explicitly, implicitly or “only in our heads”. This is a fundamental essay for anyone who has said or heard: «I’m not a racist, but…».
A taboo even in Italy. Confirmed by the co-host of Sanremo, the black Italian volleyball player of Nigerian origin, Paola Ogechi Egonu, born in Cittadella and which one always hears repeating: «If she is Italian».
Info. Ijeoma Oluo. And so you want to talk about race? Tlon. 28 euros.
4/ Books to read. Not heaven they say
Why read it
The book is a surgical medical device, it can have even serious side effects. Read the leaflet carefully or something else. Do not administer to children under one hundred and twenty. Shake well before reading.
It comes from Stefano Pisani, one of the authors of Lercio.it here for the first time as a “lead” voice, the exhilarating volume: “No heaven they say! Conspiracy handbook of very alternative medicine “.
Playing with blunders and cognitive distortions, Stefano Pisani, as a true conspiracy theorist, deduces logical interpretations and pseudoscientific explanations starting from completely invented pathologies and drugs.
The result is an irreverent medical manual because, as he writes in his introduction, medical science is not perfect.
Info. Stefano Pisani. Not heaven they say. Sperling & Kupfer. 17.90 euros.
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