Italy: Rome to host international literature festival on Palatine Hill

Newswire

Rome: Rome’s international literature festival returns for its 21st edition this summer, taking place in the spectacular setting of the Palatine Hill over five evenings from 12-21 July.

The prestigious event, organised by the Istituzione Biblioteche di Roma in collaboration with the city and the Parco Archeologico del Colosseo, features a host of award-winning Italian and international authors who will read from their work, supported by actors, live music and light effects.

The festival will see authors read new texts written especially for the festival, inspired by this year’s theme – Tempo Nostro (Our Time) – in which writers will reflect on the contemporary and look at the present with new eyes.

In the year of the centenary of the death of Marcel Proust, Tempo Nostro is intended to be a tribute to the author as well as an invitation to regain possession of what we have lost.

The 2022 programme of Letterature is curated by Simona Cives, head of Rome’s Casa delle Letterature, who said the “increasingly international festival will see the presence of many award-winning and critically acclaimed authors, some of whom have now become true ‘classics’; others, newer to the Italian reader, all of whom will explore, in Proustian style, the theme of time as a time rediscovered.”

The first evening on Tuesday 12 July is inaugurated by Spanish writer Javier Cercas, followed by the three-time Booker Prize finalist, Scottish novelist Andrew O’Hagan, and the Premio Strega 2022 winner Emmanuelle Pagano.

The second evening on Thursday 14 July opens with the poems of Dacia Maraini and the unpublished work by the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning American author Colson Whitehead, followed by Canadian writer Rivka Galchen and American novelist Katie Kitamura.

The third evening on Monday 18 July is dedicated to the Proust centenary with two unpublished works, by Premio Strega winner Alessandro Piperno and Kenyan writer Khadija Abdalla Bajaber, accompanied by readings from Laura Morante’s Recherche. Colombian-American writer Patricia Engel, Greek writer Petros Markaris and American novelist David Leavitt will also participate.

The fourth evening on Tuesday 19 July hosts the Spanish novelist Arturo Pérez-Reverte, whose work has been translated into more than 40 languages, Italian author Valeria Parrella, and Nicolas Dauplé, the grandson of Ukrainian writer Irène Némirovsky and custodian of her works.

The final evening on Thursday 21 July begins with the story of Man Booker Prize finalist, British novelist Deborah Levy, and continues with the stories of Mircea Cartarescu, the premier Romanian-language novelist, and Rome author Ben Pastor. The festival concludes with Premio Strega winner Antonio Scurati.

Situated on the eastern side of the Domus Flavia-Augustana, but at a height of about 10 metres below it, the Palatine Stadium was built by Emperor Domitian in the late first century AD.

All Letterature events are free of charge but must be booked in advance, subject to availability. The events begin at 21.00, with access to the Palatine Stadium from 20.30.