Gennaro Sangiuliano responds in kind to forty writers who signed a letter sent to the director of the Frankfurter Buchmesse Jürgen Boos and to the president of the IEA Innocenzo Cipolletta in which they express “concern” underlining the fact that “Italy will be present at the Buchmesse in an insular way, through a program of duets between Italian authors“. From Silvia Avallone to Nicola Lagioiapassing through authors such as Dacia Maraini, Donatella Di Pietrantonio and Melania Mazzucco, we talk about “aanomaly which we know has few precedents in the history of the host countries and which denotes a serious lack of cultural and editorial strategy on the part of the extraordinary commission appointed in Italy“.
Sangiuliano: “Many writers present who think differently”
The writers then return to the exclusion of Roberto Saviano judging her”too conspicuous not to be a deliberate act” and noting that “it is not an isolated event in Italy. It is part of a sequence of abuses, of different forms and severity, which we have witnessed in the last two years“. The commissioner Mauro Mazza would also have provided an answer that left many of us outraged. For these reasons they ask “a moment of public meeting with German writers“, and more generally international, during the Buchmesse 2024, in which to discuss “precisely these topics, outside the limited spaces that were designed by the Italian commission for us“. In short, there would be an explicit desire to “increasingly suffocating interference of politics in cultural spaces“.
The reply from the Minister of Culture was clear: “They are the ones who discriminate, not us“, he said on the sidelines of the party for the 50th anniversary of the Giornale in Milan. “If you look at the list of writers who have been invited to the Buchmesse, then you go through the publishers’ association, there are so many writers who think very differently from me and it’s good that they are there. I’m happy – highlights – that there are people who think differently from me but who can express their thoughts freely“, reiterated Sangiuliano. “It seems to me that the problem is that we have added someone to this list. So they are the ones who discriminatenot us“, added the government representative, highlighting that “Saviano himself had not been reported by his publisher despite this Mauro Mazza invited him, but more than that what should we do?“.
The “dissident” Velensise: “It is wrong to have a soul hostile to the institutions”
But among the writers there are also those who said no, how Marina Valensise who did not sign the letter of the 40 because, when you participate in a European book fair you are not representing the government in office, but Italy. Then go to a “international demonstration with a spirit hostile to the institutions does not seem to me to be a right choice“, observes Valensise who reflects further: “We do not move in a local, territorial or municipal context where we can assert the factions of one over the other, but we move in an international context. We don’t represent the government, we are representatives of Italian culture and nation“.
“In short – says Valensise – the idea of placing oneself in a situation of antagonism with the institutions does not seem good to me. Me for this I didn’t join“. If a writer is invited, he must therefore “respect the mandate that places him as a voice of Italian literature or culture.
I also think – but it’s a hypothesis – that if Saviano had been invited he would have refused the invitation. So faced with a possible refusal, perhaps the organizers thought it best to ignore it. It’s a hypothesis I’m making, I have no evidence to say so“, comments Valensise.
