Fabio Gambaro is the creator of the Italian Literature and Culture Festival “Italissimo” and participated in the organization of the Paris Book Festival which chose Italy as its guest of honor this year. The opportunity to ask him six questions about Italian literature.
The 2023 Paris Book Festival intends to take readers on a journey once again this year. The chosen destination: Italy, through the festival itself but also Italissimo, a festival of Italian literature and culture created and directed by Fabio Gambaro and which will take place in parallel, from April 21 to 23. In all, around fifty Italian writers will be present at the two festivals. A brief overview between Italy and France around literature with Fabio Gambaro.
Franceinfo Culture: Italy is the guest country of honour, 21 years after the last time in 2002. Was it time?
Fabio Gambaro: From a cultural point of view, exchanges between Italy and France have always been important. It has been a long time since Italy returned as a guest of honor at the Salon du livre. I think this invitation is part of a natural process. It was planned three years ago and because of the Covid, the Book Fair did not take place for two years. This choice, I interpret it as a natural consequence of the increasingly important exchanges at the level of publishing between Italy and France and a natural consequence of the interest that there is in France for culture, Italian literature and books.
There is also a political component, with the Quirinal Treaty signed in November 2021 between Italy and France, a bit like the treaty between France and Germany. Among the different aspects of strengthened cooperation, there was also the desire to intensify and multiply cultural relations, so I think that this context also played a part.
How does the program of the Festival du livre show the Italy of today?
At the Salon, there is a group of writers from several generations, from several genres, because there are many novelists, but there are also essayists and youthful authors. It is a group of writers who also reflect the geographical variety of Italy because the major difference between the Italian cultural landscape and the French cultural landscape is that the Italian landscape is much more diffuse and fragmented. In France, there is 80-90% of culture and in particular of the literary world which revolves around Paris whereas in Italy there is not a real capital which concentrates all the culture. In Italy, most of the publishing is in Milan and not in Rome. There are important publishers in Turin, in Palermo, in Venice. They are not regional producers but they come from different places and this is also reflected in this delegation of Italian authors to the Book Fair: some come from Palermo, Milan, Rome, Turin… also has differences in terms of style, worldviews.
What is the look of literature on Italy today?
It is similar to that, in France, of many authors who address themes related to social, political and anthropological news in their works. A reality that can be rooted in Milan as in Palermo, Rome, Florence or even Venice. Among the writers who are present at the festival this weekend, there are plenty who talk about Italy today, its contradictions, its problems, its political and social tensions… They do each with their own style, with their own literary choices. We are no longer at the time of neo-realism where there was the illusion of reproducing in an almost perfect way social reality and its contradictions. Today, there are literary devices that are more elaborate. For example, the work of Nicola Lagioia The City of the Living, released in 2020, is a portrait of the city of Rome today with all its social, political and anthropological contradictions.
Italy, like all Western countries, is going through a phase of decline, of economic crisis. In addition, there is a major demographic problem, there are social and political tensions. Right now is a time of political change. Italy also has a problem of differences in socio-economic realities between the South and the North of Italy. The North is a much more advanced, developed and wealthy region than the South. But above all there is a significant demographic decline in the country: firstly because young people are struggling to find their place and secondly because there is a brain drain, this is a major problem in Italy and perhaps that the political world underestimates him a little. But Italy still has a lot of resources, it is a country where there is still a lot of creativity, where there is a very significant capacity for resilience, perhaps greater than in France. An ability to adapt to realities that are very fragmented.
How did Italian writers react to the far-right coming to power in October 2022?
I think some writers didn’t like it at all, some liked it, and some were pretty indifferent because they don’t have much confidence in politics anymore. In any case, there were no reactions, no particular public demonstrations. But there are writers who have taken a stand, who have declared themselves in opposition to the new government. On the cultural level, there may be works on this situation that will be released soon.
How has Italian literature evolved in recent years?
There is a general evolution. For a number of years in Italy, but I think it’s a bit the same thing in France, there’s been more and more a return to romance in the strong sense, that is to say novels that tell stories, real romantic adventures, often in touch with reality, with the contradictions of society, whereas before there was perhaps more a literature of the intimate, which focused on individual issues.
Another element that is surely very important in the sociology of literature is that it is increasingly women writers who dominate Italian literature. In the past, perpetrators were mostly men, women mostly exceptions. Today, this is no longer the case and women are more and more present. In two or three novels, Silvia Avallone has established herself on the literary scene, she has had great success, she has won prizes. She makes literature rooted in contemporary society, with its issues. She is an author who is well known in France today. Stefania Auci is more of a historical novel, the saga of a family at the start of the 20th century. She had a great success and she imposed herself. There are young women who are real revelations in Italian literature like Beatrice Salvioni, Veronica Raimo, Francesca Manfredi (present at the Salon du livre). They are all novelists who have established themselves on the literary scene. This can also be explained by the fact that the public is more feminine.
How is Italian literature doing today?
I think Italian literature is doing pretty well. It is quite rich, many authors have a certain success, they manage to find their audience. But overall in Italy, we read much less than in France. It is a weakness of the cultural system. Books and literature in general are under pressure from the world of images, from the world of social networks. Obviously, all of this takes time, but the literary offer remains rich with quality authors. Those who are doing the best are the authors of noir novels. There is a real craze in Italy for crime novels.