Tunisia-Italy: the International Book Fair kicks off, ambassador Prunas highlights the artistic and cultural ties

As part of the 2024 promotional interventions dedicated to the publishing sector, theItaly is the country’s guest of honor at the 38th edition of the Tunis International Book Fair, which opens today at 11:00 in the Tunisian capital, at the Kram exhibition center, and will continue until April 28th. The Fair represents the most important literary and publishing trade fair event in the North African country. The Italian ambassador to Tunis, Alessandro Prunas, highlighted how “Tunisia and Italy share a common history and a proximity that is not only geographical, but which extends to all sectors of art and culture. Through participation in the Fair, Italy aims to consolidate and strengthen ties and continuous dialogue in the publishing and culture sector, thanks to the presence of Italian authors and publishers, who will allow our Tunisian friends to discover the beauty of our language, a subject of study for over 40 thousand high school students from all over the country”.

The official Italian presence at the 2024 edition is coordinated by the Italian embassy in Tunis, in collaboration with the Agency for the promotion abroad and the internationalization of Italian companies (ICE), the Italian Institute of Culture (Iic ) in Tunis and the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Ministry of Culture and the Italian Publishers Association (Aie). The Italian Pavilion, which occupies an area of approximately 240 squares, hosts five publishing houses present at the Fair, 12 publishing houses of the Italian authors participating in the cultural program and the support of “Ibby Italia: Honor List”, the Italian section of the organization international active in the field of publishing for children and teenagers.

The Minister of Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, and the general director of Libraries and Copyright of the Ministry of Culture, Paola Passarelli, will be present at the inauguration of the Fair. From what we learn from Ice Agency, the Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano, will travel to Tunis to visit the Fair on 27 April. Italian participation will take place from 19 to 28 April, with a rich program of cultural events: 13 presentations by authors, screening of documentaries, activities dedicated to the study of the Italian language, entertainment for children and teenagers, for a total of 21 events. Tomorrow, however, the presentation of the Aie Report on Italian publishing is scheduled, organized by Ice Agenzia, which will be followed by meetings between Italian publishing houses and Tunisian professional operators in the publishing sector. Inside the pavilion there is also a sales point for Italian works.

The Italian presence was promoted through a detailed press and communication campaign with promotion and invitation activities at the main local bookshop chains, invitation and mail-out activities to the 50 local publishing houses, schools and universities dedicated to the study of languages, road signs in key points of the city and preliminary press advertisements. Finally, daily press coverage of the events will be guaranteed, also managed by the social networks of the Institute of Culture and Ice Tunis. The editorial program of the participation, coordinated by the Italian Institute of Culture, is dedicated to the theme of the common “Mediterranean Soul”, declared the director of the Iic, Fabio Ruggirello, underlining that “the rich cultural program presented by Italy is aimed at everyone readers and will allow the Salone’s public to discover some of the most important figures in contemporary Italian literature. Alongside Tunisian writers, Italian authors will address themes very dear to both Italy and Tunisia, summarized by the title we have given to the entire programme, Mediterranean soul“.

The Italian publishing sector today has over 5 thousand active publishing houses and around 1.4 million titles available on the market: it is the most important of the cultural and creative industries present in Italy and the fourth largest in Europe after Germany, the United Kingdom and France. The publishing market is particularly active in Italy, with publishers and authors always careful to grasp market trends in terms of literary genres, to respond to the tastes, cultural changes, curiosity and needs of readers. In Italy we mostly read fiction (or novels): this genre occupies 34 percent of the market. A large portion of novel readers are children or teenagers, especially passionate about the fantasy genre. Among the novels, approximately 41 percent are titles by Italian authors and 59 percent by foreign authors: this testifies to the curiosity of the Italian reader for titles also coming from other countries, cultures, literary genres, but also the scouting ability of the agents Italian literary men. An extremely popular genre today in Italy is that of crime or thriller, with authors of world bestsellers. Equally popular are books for children and teenagers: especially the young adult sector (children aged 14 to 17), where comic stories are very popular. In terms of distribution, over 60 percent of readers still use bookshops, i.e. physical sales points, rather than the online channel.

The President of the IEA, Innocenzo Cipolletta, declared that “Italian participation in the Tunis International Book Fair as a guest country of honor is of particular importance. On the one hand, because it happens in a year that also sees us as guests of honor in Warsaw and Frankfurt, marking a fundamental step in the internationalization of our publishing. On the other hand, because Tunis allows us to go beyond the large European markets, turning to the Mediterranean area which has great growth potential and to which we are linked by multiple cultural and historical connections”.

The director of the Ice Agency Office in Tunis, Francesca Tango, declared that “Tunisia has always represented a market of great interest for Italy, not only for the close historical-cultural ties and affinities in terms of traditions and lifestyles. We therefore hope that this participation will be the right opportunity for a fruitful exchange between the two publishing houses: even in Italy, despite the presence of large publishing groups such as Mondadori, Gems, Giunti and Feltrinelli, the strength of the small and medium-sized publishing houses, similar to of Tunisian publishers. Every year, Italy publishes on average over 83 thousand titles, which documents the breadth of the national publishing offer. The liveliness of Italian publishing is demonstrated by the presence of over 5,100 active publishing houses, constantly growing over the last 20 years and with a strong openness towards foreign editorial production. In 2022, Italy bought the translation rights of 9,432 titles from abroad and sold 7,889 translation rights of Italian works abroad. This participation, which is part of the calendar of foreign events of Italian publishing, will therefore also be an important opportunity for exchange and mutual growth”.

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