With Nobel Prize in Literature Orhan Pamuk for the opening event and a delegation of French cartoonists from Angoulême, BookCity Milano 2023 wants to be a ‘dreamlike’ experience
BookCity 2023: a festival dedicated to books and reading in Milan – publishers, libraries, school
One of the UNESCO creative cities for literature, Milan is about to host BookCity’s twelfth edition. The festival, dedicated to books and reading, kicks off on Monday 13 November and runs for a whole week, until Sunday 19. Like every year, the 2023 program features free entry events organized and hosted in partnership with local publishers, libraries, schools, and the Milan Municipality. The festival aims at involving the city, from the center to the suburbs, with presentations and debates on Italian and international prose, poetry, fiction and art.
BookCity Milano can also count on the support of Intesa Sanpaolo as main partner and Esselunga as premium partner, in collaboration with Fondazione Cariplo and the Chamber of Commerce of Milan, Monza Brianza and Lodi. Sponsors include SIAE (Italian Authors and Publishers Association), Milan-based Italian industrial groups, such as Eni and TIM, as well as local cultural institutions.
BookCity Milano on contemporary urget topics: The Time of Dreaming: a polysemic theme for timeless books
Every edition of the festival is presents a theme. After exploring the hybridization of contemporary life in the previous edition, in 2023 BookCity dives in The Time of Dreaming. Dream was chosen for its polysemy, capable of evoking a wide range of deep desires, utopias and dystopias, journeys and battles, nightmares and fears. Dream has always been a prolific inspiration for literature, art, cinema, politics and philosophy: from Ulysses’ wife Penelope to Joan of Arc, from Sigmund Freud to Pier Paolo Pasolini, from Alfred Hitchcock to Walt Disney, up to Martin Luther King and Pope Francis.
The Time of Dreaming describes the ephemeral moment that raises during sleep, but is able to transform and influence people’s lives once they are awake. With this theme BookCity Milano 2023 wants to open a window on the past and build a bridge towards the future, making visitors more aware of their shared history while promoting a debate on contemporary urgent topics.
Turkish Nobel Prize in Literature Orhan Pamuk to open the 2023 edition of BookCity
The festival opening event will take place on 15 November evening at Teatro Dal Verme with a special guest, Turkish novelist and screenwriter Orhan Pamuk. In 2006 Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for having discovered new ways to represent bonds and clashes between cultures while portraying his hometown, Istanbul. His books talk about the complex relationship between West and East while remaining suspended between reality and imagination.
During the event, conducted by journalist and writer Giovanna Zucconi, Pamuk will be honored with the City Seal by Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala. Moreover, the Turkish author will dialogue with Alessandra Kustermann, first woman head physician of Milanese obstetric and gynecological clinic Mangiagalli, and founder of its anti-violence center.
The theme of BookCity 2023 – Nightmares: the dark side of dreams in crime reporting
Bookcity Milano 2023 gives also space to the dark side of dreams: nightmares. The festival features on November 18 an appointment dedicated to crime news and its storytelling. Writer Giacomo Papi and journalist Stefano Nazzi will track the evolution of crime news from newspaper to television, up to true crime podcasts.
Author of a podcast himself, Nazzi, together with Papi, will compare contemporary crime reporting with examples of the past. In particular, they will analyze a series of articles by Dino Buzzati, renown Italian crime reporter of the Twentieth century.
Collodi, Manzoni, Gadda and Callas: all the anniversaries of BCM23
2023 is a year full of cultural anniversaries and BookCity Milano will celebrate four artists who were made immortal by their talent.
It has been a hundred and forty years since the first release of children’s novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi. Since then, Pinocchio has become a cultural icon and his story has been adapted into other media. From 17 to 19 November, singer, actor, composer and screenwriter Beppe Servillo will offer a reding of Collodi’s novel at Teatro Gerolamo.
2023 also marks the sesquicentennial of the death of Alessandro Manzoni, writer and poet considered as the father of the Italian novel. The festival will feature a series of appointments dedicated to Manzoni and his masterpiece, The Betrothed.
Yet another death anniversary is that of Milanese writer Carlo Emilio Gadda, who disappeared fifty years ago. BookCity will remember him with dedicated readings, seminaries and presentations.
Last but not least, the festival will pay a tribute to soprano singer Maria Callas for the hundredth anniversary of her birth. For the occasion, Callas’ Italian biographer Annarita Briganti will present her book.
UNESCO creative cities: from Angoulême to Milan through comics at BookCity Milano
BookCity Milano 2023 welcomes a delegation from Angoulême, another UNESCO creative city. Angoulême hosts one of the world biggest comics festivals and will bring to Milan some French writers and artists working in this field.
At the Triennale, Silvia Ziche, Sergio Gerasi and Giulio Mosca will meet Nathalie Ferlut, Giorgia Marras and Benoît Hamet for a roundtable. They will share opinions on what does it mean to be a cartoonist, comparing the Italian and French panoramas. At Castello Sforzesco French illustrator Jacques De Loustal will pay a tribute to the comics world in collaboration with Italian cartoonist, writer, lyricist and translator Tito Faraci.
Percorsi d’autore: literature becomes a path towards contemporary hot issues on society
Percorsi d’autore is a new format launched in the previous festival edition. BookCity invites writers, journalists and other representatives of the Italian cultural panorama to deal with contemporary issues through literature and culture. These are not single events, but paths made of multiple appointments, featuring several speakers and interventions.
Writer, journalist and radio presenter Benedetta Tobagi will explore the relation between women and war. Many philosophers and thinkers, such as Carla Lorenzi and John Keegan, thought that war and aggressivity are something purely male. Still, women fighters exist. Tobagi will asks herself whether they represent a mere emulation of the patriarchy or have their own specificity.
Artificial intelligence, greenery, ecology, and more at BookCity
Journalist Massimo Sideri will open an ethical discussion about artificial intelligence. He will derive inspiration from Italo Calvino, who managed to foresee the digital revolution. Sideri will explain why contemporary society and its innovations cannot be just black and white, all bad or all good. As history suggests, progress always has its pros and cons. The only possible solution is to find the right balance and keep struggling to maintain it.
Researcher Eleonora Tafuro Ambrosetti will promote a debate on past and new imperialism, a topic made particularly urgent by the recent war in Ukraine. Ambrosetti and her guests will discuss of the role of Russia, Turkey, China, USA and Europe in the future world order.
Furthermore, coach of the Italian national volleyball team Mauro Berruto, together with writer and radio presenter Matteo Caccia, will host a series of appointments dedicated to sport and literature. Magazine director Emanuela Rosa-Clot will talk about greenery and ecology with writers, garden designers and architects. Journalist and essayist Eliana Liotta will direct the second edition of a path dedicated to medicine. Autobiographical writing and the concept of the self will be the theme proposed by writer and journalist Giovanna Zucconi.
Another side of BookCity program: Il menu della poesia: a taste of poetry at Bar Atlantic
For the second year in a row BookCity features the program Il menu della poesia, in cooperation with Esselunga’s bar chain Bar Atlantic, which turns twenty this year. In nine of its locations, Bar Atlantic will serve a particular poetic menu. Customers will be able to choose a poem from a list of proposals and professional actors in the guise of waiters will declaim it.
The aim of the initiative is to support culture by showing that it can reach the most diverse audience in many different ways. This year the poetry menu ranges from classic poetic motives to food, from the anniversaries celebrated in the festival to its theme, the time of dreaming.
BookCity Milano closing event: a journey through the books of dream
After a week of events, which will also expand outside Milan, to Lodi and Cremona, BookCity will lower the curtain on November 19 evening at Teatro Franco Parenti. Here, psychiatrist and essayist Vittorio Lingiardi will lead the public on a journey through the books of dream. Ariadne’s thread will be actress Federica Fracassi’s voice.
Spectators will have the chance to meet Penelope’s white gooses and wander through Aelius Aristides’ nightmares. They will listen to poems by Ovid and Marina Tsvetaeva, and meditate on the Bible and the Quran. They will learn the difference between Freud’s and Jung’s dreams and witness a neuroscientific argument between Hobson and Solms. Finally, after peeking into Kafka’s and Schnitzler’s dreams journals, they will give voice to Bergman’s and Lynch’s images. Thus, the festival will end, but its audience will be able to keep on dreaming.
BookCity Milano
BookCity Milano is a cultural initiative supported by the Milan Municipality. It aims at promoting the world of books and reading. It consists of a series of meetings, book presentations, and other activities in support of literature and culture.
