The German language is the guest of honour at this year’s Turin International Book Fair (Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino, 9 to 13 May 2024).
As part of the ‘Literatur Parade. Gastsprache Deutsch #SalTo24’ programme, 25 German-language authors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, including Swiss authors Usama Al Shahmani, Lukas Bärfuss, Simone Lappert and Noëmi Lerch, will travel to Piedmont. The exhibition stand and programme presence at the most important Italian book fair will be sponsored by Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with Pro Helvetia supporting the participation.
The German guest language programme showcases the diversity of German-language literature in translation, showcasing works from Swiss Georg Büchner Prize winner Lukas Bärfuss and Kafka biographer Reiner Stach to new voices such as Charlotte Gneuß, whose debut novel Gittersee (S. Fischer) was longlisted for the German Book Prize 2023. The topics of the books set to be presented in Piedmont range from questions of origin and family, remembrance and forgetting, fleeing and migration to climate action and sustainability.
The authors who have been invited to attend as part of the ‘Literatur Parade’ are Usama Al Shahmani, Lukas Bärfuss, Laura Cwiertnia, Bea Davies, Charlotte Gneuß, Hanna Harms, Lin Hierse, Annabelle Hirsch, Barbara Juch, Anja Kampmann, Shelly Kupferberg, Simone Lappert, Angela Lehner, Jimi Lend, Noëmi Lerch, Eva Maria Leuenberger, Andrea Macaluso, Nicolas Mahler, Jens Nielsen, Julya Rabinowich, Johanna Schaible, Sabine Scho, Reiner Stach, Jan Wagner and Dita Zipfel.
Exhibition stand and programme
The approximately 170-square-metre exhibition stand of ‘Literatur Parade. Gastsprache Deutsch #SalTo24’ will be at the book fair in the Oval (Stand V22), where, among other things, visitors will be able to take part in various events with the invited authors and buy books thanks to the Libreria Internazionale Luxemburg. Thematic book collections will present a panorama of what’s currently being produced in the world of German-language literature, from children’s books and comics to graphic novels and fiction. One of the collections was curated by the Italian author Igiaba Scego, who will be at the fair to present this ‘Canone Speciale’ of special titles translated from German into Italian.
The ‘Poesie um 12 Uhr’ (poetry at 12 noon) series is a daily opportunity to meet with poets, curated and sponsored by the Casa di Goethe museum in Rome. Authors will also be giving spoken-word performances in German and Italian, and there will be meetings and activities for children as well as industry get-togethers. The exhibition stand is designed sustainably according to the ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ principle. At the Turin International Book Fair’s Rights Centre, ‘Book to Screen’ will focus on the rights of novel adaptations as well as the relationship between the publishing world and the film industry.
A reading parade that moves through the Turin city centre
As part of the ‘Salone Off’ initiative, the ‘Read Parade – 2024 la letteratura si fa strada’ – a festive parade through the city with floats and music – will take place on Saturday, 11 May 2024, bringing the art of storytelling back to its origins in the public sphere and community. With this event, the organisers of the ‘Literatur Parade’ aim to show a gesture of openness that gets the citizens of Turin and all lovers of literature involved. Veronica Raimo, Chiara Galeazzi, Vincenzo Latronico, Tom Müller and Anja Kampmann are among those taking part.
Programme with translators: L’autore invisibile
Translators who work with German and/or Italian as their source languages are lined up to speak on several panels in ‘L’autore invisibile’. These include Moshe Kahn, who is also known as the ‘translator of the untranslatable’ thanks to his translation of Stefano D’Arrigo’s Horcynus Orca. This work, which occupied the author for almost 30 years, was honoured with the German-Italian Literary Translation Prize in 2015. Another recipient of this important prize is the translator of Vielleicht Esther (Adelphi), Ada Vigliani, who will be in attendance for an interview with Katja Petrowskaja. Also coming to Turin is Silvia Albesano, the translator for Charlotte Gneuß, Esther Kinsky and Kim de l’Horizon.
9 to 13 May 2024
From mid-April, the full programme for the guest language German can be found online here:
The organisers of ‘Literatur Parade’
- For Switzerland: the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and the Swiss Bookseller’s and Publisher’s Association (SBVV).
- For Germany: the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Goethe Institute, Litrix.de and the Federal Foreign Office.
- For Austria: the Federal Ministry of European and International Affairs and the Austrian Cultural Forums in Milan and Rome.
In cooperation with: Lucy sulla cultura, Libreria Luxemburg international bookshop, Casa di Goethe museum, Read Parade
