Teresa Crimisi is a well-known name in European publishing. To her Annalena Beninion his first Turin Book Fair as director, she entrusted the curatorship of the new section dedicated to what is defined as a “acrobatic profession“, in which Cremisi will dialogue with publishers very different from each other, like Antonio Selleriogeneral and editorial director of Sellerio, Antoine Gallimardpresident and general director of Madrigall (which in addition to Gallimard brings together dozens of publishing houses), Stefano Mauripresident and CEO of GeMS (and editor of this site, ed), And Massimo Turchettageneral director of Rizzoli (here are the details on four appointments scheduled at Lingotto between 9 and 12 May).
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Cremisi is the daughter of an Italian entrepreneur and a Spanish and Anglo-Indian sculptor, she was born in ’45 in Alexandria, Egyptand in his professional career the France and the French language they played a central role.
Arriving in Italy at the age of ten, she began her journey in books in Milan: after twenty-two years at Garzanti (where she started as a lexicographer for dictionaries and worked her way up to managing the brand, in the meantime also working for the Raiwithout forgetting the collaborations with The Express And The print), in 1989 she moved to Paristo manage the prestigious publishing house Gallimard. The transition to 2005 took place Flammarion group and the 2016 presidency of the CNC (National Cinema Center). After the death of Roberto Calasso (on July 28, 2021), was appointed president of AdelphiWhile Roberto Colajanni he was chosen as CEO and editorial director.
A long journey in the world of “making books”, therefore, a voyage in which there was no shortage of challenges, the one faced by Cremisi, during which she saw book publishing change, and in which she was also a protagonist as an author (writing some of her texts in French), with Strangled with an ashtray (Bompiani, 1974), with the novel The Triumphant (Adelphi, 2016), with Chronicles of Disordera volume published by La Nave di Teseo last year, and edited by Trial of condemnation of Joan of Arc (reproposed by Marsilio).
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Regarding her main work, interviewed by Chiara Valerio Teresa Cremisi said that “being a publisher is a profession that is difficult to define, so much so that I couldn’t even do it with my children. Once, trying to compete with his friends who said ‘my mother is a surgeon’, ‘my mother is a lawyer’, my son tried to rack his brains and in the end he said: ‘my mother talks on the phone‘. Gallerists and music producers are also intermediaries, filters and agents; publishing has something more because it not only creates contact between the artist and the place where it will be exhibited, but also an object. AND this object has something eternal. It has something eternal like the perfection of a cup: it can deform the handle, widen it, but a cup is always a cup and a book is always a book.”
In fact, Teresa Cremisi, despite the fact that periodically someone prophesies its end, books and publishing, while certainly not lacking in problems, have demonstrated that they are also able to resist the digital revolution and the rise of social media: she is optimistic for the future of reading, or do you have any fears?
“I have the impression of always repeating the same things, but I do it willingly: the book is part of the essential objects of human life. We cannot do without books to safeguard and transmit knowledge and literature. As for the ‘digital revolution’, allow me two general considerations”.
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“We experienced a true digital revolution when typographical composition abandoned lead; production was completely transformed and became much more agile and economical. If access to digital books is then indicated as a ‘revolution’, it should be remembered that a book is always a book, digital or not, that it is not a question of competition. but of complementarity. And – a very important thing, which we did not fully foresee twenty years ago – the readers are, for the most part, the same. Whoever reads, reads. He prefers to do it on paper and keep his books on shelves but, if he travels or can’t find the edition he’s looking for, he reads the desired text on Kindle or iPad; then complete with a paperback; then, again, buy on a second-hand stall… In short, it adapts, just as the publishing industry adapts to the uncertainties of the economic and social situation”.
In the introduction to the series of meetings that he will organize at the Book Fair, it is underlined that the profession of the publisher takes on “very different connotations depending on the publishing brand, and the country, in which one works”. And again: “an eye on sales and an eye on quality, an eye on commerce and an eye on spirit, an eye on the taste of the time and an eye on posterity”: how has his approach to editorial work changed in time?
“It hasn’t really changed. I think it’s a very particular profession precisely because it’s ‘cross-eyed’. Rather difficult, precisely because it requires sometimes contradictory qualities and defects — experience, intuition, curiosity, tenacity, humility. Difficult to ‘teach’ it. You become a publisher by discovering sometimes unsuspected talents in yourself.”
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To young people who today dream of joining a publishing house, what would you recommend?
“To follow their inspiration! It is not by entering publishing that they will become rich. But it is an exciting crossroads, some of the highest tensions converge there in the short time we are given to live. It is a privileged observation post on literary creation, the elaboration of ideas and the evolution of taste”.
Less than three years ago you received a heavy legacy, that of Calasso: how do you see the present, and above all the near future of Adelphi?
“I don’t think you can call my presidency ‘a legacy.’ I accepted this position in a spirit of friendship and desire for preservation. Calasso was not only president, but also CEO and editorial director, for decades. Two roles that Roberto Colajanni today carries out with competence and audacity”.
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About the future of Adelphi – as anticipated by Republic in recent weeks – Philip Roth will also be there: what pushed you to face this challenge, acquiring the catalog of his works?
“Philip Roth is the author of one of the strongest and most coherent works of our time. ‘Challenge’, therefore, is perhaps an inappropriate definition. When the time comes, when the editorial reflection on the re-editions of Philip Roth’s books will be completed, Roberto Colajanni will explain it to you in its entirety.”
In a 2016 interview on our site she explained that she had “always been an omnivorous reader”. “Since I was a little girl, I have loved the classic epics and Shakespeare. Even if I understood almost nothing, they left me something,” she added: Is there a recently published book that really struck you, which in the future will be considered a “classic”?
“When I read Svyatlana Aleksievič’s books, in particular the one which in Italy was translated as Second hand time (and in other countries like The end of the red man) I had a kind of artistic stupor. This is how a writer uses the reality and history of ordinary people to make it a novel of human stories. The method, the stylistic choices, the documentary attention transformed by an artist’s gaze… all this gave me the impression of reading a masterpiece. In a different genre, Yasmina Reza’s books have the same effect on me. I would especially recommend Happy are the happy“.
In the same interview she then admitted: “If I hadn’t started working in publishing, I probably would have dedicated myself to biology, or medicine”: What is the aspect of your job as a publisher that still gives you the most positive energy today?
“I’m curious, and editorial life offers me surprises over and over again. I am tenacious and our profession presents ever-renewing difficulties. I love intellectual risk, and publishing is an excellent training ground for this.”
One last curiosity: are you working on a new book?
“I forgot: I’m also lazy and my personal work is always postponed to another time. There is always something more important to do or write.”
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