Mantua Literature Festival boasts 350 guests

Including Rifkin and Fellowes, Enquist can't for health reasons

(ANSA) - Rome, September 3 - For five days this month, the Festivaletteratura literary fest of Mantua will host 340 events and bring 350 guests to the city in northern Italy, including Jeremy Rifkin, Francesco De Gregori, and Julian Fellowes No political figure has yet announced an official presence.

House Speaker Laura Boldrini will be there on an unofficial visit. Per Olov Enquist, considered the 'critical conscience' of Sweden's Social Democrats, will not be able to attend due to health problems. He had been scheduled to be in Mantua for his 80th birthday on September 26 and the release in Italy of his autobiographical novel 'Il Libro delle Parole' (Iperborea). An event on the widely acclaimed author will be held on September 4 with Bruno Gambarotta and Emilia Lodigiani in Piazza Sordello. Andrei Kurkov, one of the most important contemporary Ukrainian authors writing in Russian, will be at the festival to present 'Diari Ucraini' (Keller), a first-hand account of what happened in Kiev's main square from November 21, 2013, until late April 2014. The philosopher Nuccio Ordine will be at the inauguration, speaking of culture as heritage to be protected, while Michael Cunningham will be the highlight of the closing on September 7 with his highly original novel 'La Regina delle Nevi' (Bompiani). In its 18th year, the festival draws crowds with big name authors but also actively seeks out new ones like Tommy Wieringa, who has been compared with J.D. Salinger and Paul Auster, with 'Questi Sono i Nomi (Iperborea), the Brazilian Adriana Lisboa, whose 'Hanoi'(La Nuova Frontiera) will be released during the festival, the Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013 with her debut novel 'Abbiamo Bisogno di Nuovi Nomi' (Bompiani), which will be in bookstores on September 5. In the centenary year for the outbreak of WWI, the sound installation 'Caro Padre, Vidirò' at the Cripta di San Sebastiano will give a voice to the many Italians who were called on to take up weapons. As memory is the unifying threat of this year's edition, the lives of relatives and ancestors who took part in the war will be able to be reconstructed at the sacristy of the state archives, with special IT stations set up for the purpose of consulting state records. One of the previews with be Chicca Gagliardo's new book, 'Il Poeta dell'Aria'(Hacca), a novel in 33 flight lessons slated for release on September 17, on the basis of notes, verses and art by Emily Dickinson, Marina Cvetaeva, Bruno Munari, and Yves Klein.

Other guests include Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize winner with 'Olive Kitteridge' (Fazi), which has become a 4-episode miniseries set to go on air in the US in November on HBO and on Sky Cinema in Italy in January 2015. The poet Pierluigi Cappello will also be present for the first time, whose first book of children's poems 'Ogni Goccia Balla il Tango' (Rizzoli) will come out in September. Another household name in Italy, Caludio Magris, will speak about different levels in literature, how an author can keep their narrative distinct, and about private writing and correspondence.