BOOKCITY MILANO: THE START OF THE NEW EDITION

Wednesday at noon I attended a pre-launch event by Bookcity Milano, for their showcase that they have every year fittingly called Bookcity Milano. This initiative is supported by a staggering list of sponsors, being patronised by the President of Italy, the Region of Lombardia and the Comune of Milan. The list gets more and more impressive as we move on to the corporate sponsors Feltrinelli, Mondadori, Corriere della Sera, Intesa Sanpaolo, Pirelli and the Borsa Italiana.

The goals of Bookcity Milano include promoting Milan as a publishing hub, using a multifaceted approach to promote reading for the development of ground-breaking and innovative services and products while stimulating jobs and economic growth. Pretty ambitious for a book festival but, after listening to the speakers present, I was convinced and, with the corporate sponsors I mentioned and all the others involved in this initiative, I came to the conclusion that if you haven’t heard of this event till now you definitely will by the time it’s over and you’ll sure be sorry you missed it, if you don’t turn out.

Bookcity Milano’s main goal is to get people to read and for people to appreciate reading as a fruitful activity. Their book festival runs from the 13^th to the 17^th of November, it’ll be the go-to event for all you book-worms for anything literature related. There’ll be loads of events all across Milan at different amazing venues including many at the Castello Sforzesco in various different halls, some of which are usually closed to the public, as well as the “Museo Nazionale Della Scienza e Della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci”. The events range from a showing of a BBC adaptation of H. G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” to an informative session about Africa. One of these events titled “Afriche, Storie nonstop” luckily is going to be held on campus at the Egea bookstore from 18:30 onwards on the 15^th of November, as a matter of fact this year’s edition of the Bookcity Milano Festival key theme is Africa. This aspect of the festival is to educate people on stories, history and the people of Africa through books and their authors, it was chosen this year because Bookcity Milano feels that people don’t know much about Africa and African ways of life and I wholeheartedly agree.

P.S: Unfortunately, for all you English speakers out there (like me), I’ve yet to find a single event in English unless they don’t dub over “The War of the Worlds”. Also, I’d like to give a shout out to Professor Paola Dubini for speaking at the event, it was a wonderful surprise to see her presenting something outside the Velodromo.

For more information go to bookcitymilano.it

Rod Behbahani