Artwork by illustrator Gabriella Giandelli.
By Erin L. Cox, Publisher | @erinlcox
On February 4th, Il Salon Internazionale del Libro di Torino (the Turin International Book Fair) announced its 38th edition, themed “The World Saved by Kids” featuring a keynote address by internationally renowned novelist and essayist Zadie Smith.
The consumer-facing event will run from March 14-18, featuring a program for international publishing professionals which will take place from Wednesday, May 13th to Friday, May 15th at the Lingotto Congress Centre. The theme this year pays homage to Italian writer and translator Elsa Morante and her 1968 novel of the same name which was written in the context of what Morante called the “great youth movement exploding against the funereal machinations of the organized contemporary world.”
In describing the selection of this theme, Annalena Benini, Editorial Director of Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino said, “The world saved by kids is first and foremost a message of hope. It is the world that we as Salone del Libro, try to build every day, with inventiveness and dedication.”
On Wednesday, May 14th, Smith will deliver the keynote speech entitled “Everything Was Extreme. And it still is. A reflection on adolescence.”
International writers set to attend this year include Guillermo Arriaga, Magali Bonniol, Emmanuel Carrère, Annie Cohen-Solal, David Grossman, Valeria Luiselli, Petros Markaris Evan Osnos, Guillaume Perreault, Ece Temelkuran, Hervé Tullet, Abraham Verghese, Irvine Welsh, Lea Ypi, among others which will be announced next month.
Founded in 1988, Il Salon Internazionale del Libro di Torino is the largest Italian book fair and, last year, welcomed over 230,000 attendees with 25,000 of those attendees being publishing professionals. A project of the Turin Association, the City of the Book, the Circolo dei lettori Foundation, and the Turin Foundation for Culture, the book fair is a growing destination for publishers, service providers, authors, and translators not only from Italy but from around the world.
The Salone has been developing its Guest of Honor Country program, as well as its strategic relations with European and international institutions, including the Institut Français, Instituto Cervantes, Goethe-Institut, Literature Ireland, the Polish Book Institute, and, for the first time in Turin this year, NORLA (Norwegian Literature Abroad). This year’s guest of honor country is Greece.
Translation is a key investment by the Salone which hosts a bustling Rights Center. Last year, 450 publishing professionals from 38 countries registered on the matching platform: 42 from film production companies, 147 from Literary and Scouting Agencies, and 261 publishers, resulting in 4056 meetings.
The Rights Center also offers a fellowship program for publishers, editors, rights managers, literary agents, and foreign scouts, which is supported by the Italian Trade Agency and helps support the international attendance at the fair.
In addition, the Salone has a collaboration with the Frankfurter Buchmesse which sparked the Aficionado Award, now in its 4th year and celebrating innovation in publishing from around the world, and a partnership with the European Strega Prize which honors international authors.