The 15th edition of Una marina di libri is underway and will take place from Thursday 6th to Sunday 9th June at the Villa Filippina Park in Palermo. The Festival is organized by the Una marina di libri ETS Association in collaboration with the Piazza Marina & Dintorni Natural Shopping Center, Navarra Editore, Sellerio Editore and Libreria Dudi. With the patronage of the Municipality of Palermo, Metropolitan City, Sicily Region, University of Palermo and Aie – Italian Publishers Association.
At the helm of the independent publishing festival, created by Maria Giambruno, will be the journalist and writer Gaetano Savatteri for the fourth consecutive year. The theme that will act as a common thread for presentations, dialogues and meetings with writers, editors, artists, magistrates, journalists, poets, illustrators, cartoonists, university professors, students, associations and representatives of civil society, has the title: ” Beyond borders”.
“A book festival – explains Savatteri – is by definition a territory of violated and uncertain borders: literature, journalism, music, cinema, books for adults, for young people, for children intersect. Books without boundaries of sex, gender, religion, ideologies because ideas, like words and thoughts, do not stop at fences. Today more than ever, in a time marked by walls and crossings, we need to go back to practicing trespassing to break down conformism and barriers. A sea of books 2024 is an opportunity to remember that Palermo and Sicily are and will always be a land of intersections, contamination, meetings and comparisons. The sea is not a barrier for those who know the language of thought because, as they say in Sicily “he who has a tongue can pass over the sea”.
A program full of news and guests, with truly important numbers: 80 independent publishers, 8 stages dedicated to presentations, debates, shows, readings, music, culture, theater and visual arts for a total of over 400 appointments distributed over the four days.
There will be many notable guests from the writer Petros Markaris, who will meet the public to talk, together with the producer Carlo Degli Esposti (Palomar) and Valentina Alferj, literary agent and collaborator of Andrea Camilleri, about books and television dramas, to Daria Bignardi who from 2020 airs on Radio Capital with L’ora Daria, the morning appointment on books and interviews, with Vinicio Marchioni, a well-known face in cinema, theater and TV, who made his debut with the novel Tre notti. And then Filippo Ceccarelli, journalist from Repubblica and regular guest on the Propaganda Live program on La7, who tells us with intelligence and irony the extraordinary story of Silvio Berlusconi’s life and power; Adriano Sofri, with a diary on the war in Chechnya that he experienced and documented; Giorgio Fontana, with his investigation into the works and life of Kafka; Calogero Ferrara and Francesco Petruzzella with The Devil’s Army (Navarra Editore) a text on mafia murders, which gives body and shape to the horror so as not to extinguish the flame of indignation. And again the director Davide Ferrario who, thanks to the collaboration with Cinema City Palermo, will present his documentary on Umberto Eco at Una marina di libri, and Ester Pantano, actress and singer, who plays in Le Rose. Words and music, pieces of popular tradition dedicated to Rosa Balistreri and Santa Rosalia, in homage to the 400th anniversary of the Festino.
For the section “The writers we miss” the tribute goes to Irène Némirovsky with the reading from the French Suite by Anna Bonaiuto (within the Flm Ad alta voci project financed by Cepell) and Franz Kafka remembered by Giorgio Fontana and Adriano Sofri.
The signs of Venus
In this fourth centenary of the discovery of the relics of Saint Rosalia, the window on gender issues, curated by Maria Giambruno, becomes a tribute to the Saint and the City of Palermo: “The Signs of Rosalia”. Among the protagonist authors of The Signs of Venus, Azzurra Rinaldi, economist, professor of Political Economy at the Unitelma Sapienza in Rome, writer and popularizer, and “feminist economist”, as she defines herself, with the book How to ask for a raise Strategies and practices to give you the right value; Elena Granata, architect and professor of urban planning at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of the Polytechnic of Milan with The sense of women for the city; Giulia Blasi, writer and journalist specializing in gender issues and civil rights, with the book Things Never Happened and Ines Testoni, professor of social psychology at the University of Padua, with The third sex. Why God is not male and other gender issues; Francesca Marzia Esposito, author of Body Snatchers of a new perfection (minimum fax).
For the second consecutive year at Una marina di libri there will be professional training with events organized in collaboration with the Order of Journalists of Sicily: discussing justice and legality will be: Teresa Principato, Maurizio De Lucia, Elvira Terranova, Salvo Palazzolo, Giacomo De Girolamo and Nello Trocchia. Books but also music and traveling theater with Lucina Lanzara, the artists of the Teatro Bastardo, and the young musicians of the Alessandro Scarlatti Conservatory of Music in Palermo.
There are many partners for 2024: associations, companies and cultural institutes of the city that give the sense of a shared event that is the heritage of Palermo. The Summer School promoted by the Unipa University Language Center returns as every year; the Bonelli Center for Evangelical Culture will propose a meeting with Alessandro Hoffmann, the Central Library with the translator Rita Calabrese; International House will introduce you to the English language with a dedicated space; Cinema City Palermo and Sole Luna Doc Film Festival will bring cinema to Una marina di libri, and the partnerships with the Institut Francais are confirmed thanks to which Zineb Mekouar and Marielle Anselmo will arrive in Palermo, and again with the Cervantes, Strade, Tenute Orestiadi, the Academy of Fine Arts, the A. Scarlatti Conservatory, Doctors Without Borders, Palermo Pride, Remax luxury house and many others. Furthermore, the FLM Ad Alta Voce project, financed by the Center for books and reading, will end from 6 to 9 June with Anna Bonaiuto, Samantha Milton Knowles and numerous readings for adults and children, which saw A sea of books as partners of the Festival of Migrant Literature throughout the year in the organization of workshops and readings aloud.
The publishing program for girls and boys curated by Maria Romana Tetamo’s Dudi bookshop is also full of stimuli and proposals, which every year involves male and female authors, illustrators from the national scene to present the latest editorial news, with readings aloud and practical creative workshops and a series of meetings dedicated to the themes of children’s literature and education in general. This year’s program will open on Thursday afternoon (5.30 pm) with the inaugural show Katitzi, a scenic rewrite and direction by Gisella Vitrano, with Marcella Vaccarino and Dario Muratore, based on the book by Katarina Taikon published by Iperborea.
Among Dudi’s guests: Angelo Mozzillo (Andersen super prize 2021), Giovanni Colaneri (Orbil prize winner 2023), Agnese Baruzzi, Lucia Scuderi, Matteo Sabato, Giorgio Volpe and Samanta Milton Knowles, reworker and editor of the Italian version of Pippi Longstocking, who will meet the students of the schools. Among the presentations worth mentioning is the essay The chick is not a dog. Arabic publishing for children as a mirror of society (published by Astarte) with Enrica Battista and Maria Grazia Decente of Arabooks who edited the translation, and Le Ragazze Ce La Fano (Il Castoro) within which you will find the story of the Cotti in Fragranza project of the Malaspina juvenile penal institute in Palermo.
Sellerio Editore authors for Una marina di libri 2024: Adriano Sofri, Saba Anglana, Bernardo Zannoni, Maurizio Carta, Giorgio Fontana, Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi. And a new edition of The Tawny Prince by Salvatore Silvano Nigro.
Authors Navarra Editore for Una marina di libri 2024: Alessio Calaciura, Calogero Ferrara and Francesco Petruzzella, Anna Rosa Gagliano. Mariuccia Noto, Maria Teresa Coraci, Mariacristina Di Giuseppe, Vito Lo Scrudato, Domenico Occhipinti, and for the childhood program Daniela Lo Secco, Cristina Cucinella and Evelin Costa.
Summer school
The fourth edition of the Summer School in Literary Translation (SSTL), directed by Daniela Tononi and coordinated by Renata Vinci of the SUM Department, in collaboration with the CLA of the University of Palermo and StradeLab, will be divided into six translation workshops (from English, French, Spanish, German, Arabic and Chinese). The meeting “Joys and sorrows – Humor and renunciations in the translation of Zerocalcare” will take place within Una marina di libri with the translators Myriam Alfano and Brune Seban.
Concerts
The evenings of Una marina di libri will end with a musical program curated by Parco Villa Filippina. We start on Thursday with the jazz quartet No More Blu, which will offer a refined repertoire of jazz standards. Friday will be the turn of Pacha Kama, a group committed to the recovery of traditional South American musical genres. On Saturday the stage will be entirely for the blind pianist Davide Santacolomba, while on Sunday the festival will be closed by 28IF, a band born from the passion for the Beatles phenomenon.
Accessibility and inclusion
This year too, thanks to the precious support of our partners, we have chosen to pay particular attention to ensuring accessibility to our festival. During the four days, people with motor disabilities will be able to take advantage of an assistance service with mobility operators made available by AOPCS – Civil and Social Protection Operational Activity.
Thanks to the support of the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired ETS-APS – together with the National Center for the Spoken Book, Irifor, Iapb, the National Federation of Pro-Blind Onlus Institutions, the Italian Library for the Blind, the ETS Regional Braille Printing House, the Multimedia Tactile Centre, Helen Keller Regional Centre, Univoc, Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired ETS-APS, territorial section of Palermo, the festival will host presentations, an interesting “reading in the dark”, an exhibition and a range of dedicated tactile manipulation and recognition workshops knowledge of Braille writing. Some of the events indicated in the program will benefit from the Lis translation service with the support of the Sicana Foundation.
Speakers corner
Ten minutes to recite or tell your own text: open microphone for emerging writers and poets. Partners and supporters of A navy of books. Main sponsors of Una marina di libri are Fotograph, printing partner, and for the third consecutive year, Coop. The central stage is named after Coop, where the presentations and shows most awaited by the public are concentrated. The relationship with Tenute Orestiadi, a wine bar and dedicated stage within the event, also continues.
Info and costs
Inauguration Thursday 6 June at 5.00 pm (last entry at 10.00 pm). On Friday morning, from 10am to 2pm, entry is free for participation in school promotion activities. Friday 7 and Saturday 8 June: from 10.00 to 14.00 – from 16.00 to 24.00 (last entry at 23.00). Sunday 9 June: from 10.00 to 14.00 – from 16.00 to 23.00 (last entry 22.00). The gates and ticket office will close between 2.00 pm and 4.00 pm
Single entry €3.00. Daily pass (3 entries) €6.00 - Four-day pass (7 entries) €10.00. Girls and boys under 13 enter for free. The first 400 people who purchase the four-day subscription online will receive the limited edition canvas shopping bag dedicated to the theme of the edition.
