The International Book Fair in Torino, the second largest Book Fair in Europe, has announced that Saudi Arabia will no longer be the guest of honour in its 2016 event. Instead, next year’s fair will focus on Arab Literature more broadly. This move breaks with the fair’s long tradition of hosting a different country each year, in close collaboration with the embassies and the ministry of culture of the guest countries.
It was almost midnight in Sydney and about 4pm in Sambuca in Sicily, when the Italian newsagency ANSA launched the news: “The organizers decided that the International Book Fair in Torino would not have an honoured guest next year, but would shift from a geopolitical to geo-cultural criteria” (ANSA, 6 October 2015). The press launch almost echoed the open letter that we, Lucia Sorbera and Paola Caridi, co-wrote on 30 September 2015, and published on Paola’s blog, Invisiblearabs. In forty-eight hours, we mobilized about two hundred people around the world, from Italy to Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Middle East. A diverse group of individuals enthusiastically supported our call, from scholars and activists to intellectuals of different generations, and, most importantly, those who were supposed to be the main audience of cultural events: the literature lovers and culture-mongers, whose professions are not related to the literary field.
Per leggere tutto il lungo articolo firmato da Lucia Sorbera e da me, seguite questo link e visitate Jadaliyya.
Thank you Paola for the wonderful work in support of Arabic literature. I am very proud of your achievement!