It may be Wednesday, but I’m still buzzing from the past weekend and all the bookish talk I was lucky enough to be immersed in for two and a half days!
On Saturday, I went back to Pordenone for three talks as well as enjoying the general festive atmosphere as the whole city partook in the festival.
The first talk I attended was Cecilia Sala in conversation with Mario Calabresi, two great journalists who talked mostly about Cecilia’s new book, I figli dell’odio, which investigates the rise of radicalisation among young people focusing especially on Israel, Palestine and Iran. I love her work and almost religiously follow her daily podcast Stories, never missing an episode (which, let’s be real, doesn’t happen for any other podcast I follow). So, you can imagine my excitement at being able to listen to this conversation live! The event was incredibly well attended, and hundreds of people remained standing outside the hall to try to listen as seats had all been filled up. If you’re curious about her work, Cecilia’s first book, The Fire, has been translated into English and published by Europa Editions.
In the afternoon, I headed to the city theatre to attend an event with Spanish author Ildefonso Falcones, who was awarded the Crédit Agricole prize for historical fiction. After the ceremony, Falcones presented his latest novel, En el amor y en la guerra, the third instalment in his Cathedral of the Sea trilogy. It was fascinating to hear about his process for writing historical fiction and the way in which he always includes characters from the lower socio-economic classes to fully draw readers into the historical period he is trying to describe, as the struggles of “common folk” are more relatable than those of kings and queens.
Finally my day ended with a talk by Russian author Boris Akunin. He is actually a new-to-me author, but my dad likes his books so I tagged along. This is actually one of the things I love the most about attending literary events: the chance to always discover new authors and books almost by chance! Akunin has heavily criticised the Russian government and is currently living in exile, after being designated as a foreign agent and a terrorist, and earlier this year being convicted in absentia to 14 years in prison. His was a very interesting and deeply saddening talk, as he shared his story and presented his latest novella, L’avvocato del diavolo (literally, the devil’s advocate; I’m not aware of an English translation for this book), a satirical dystopia in which Russia is governed by a new regime and a formerly exiled writer finds himself defending the vice-secretary of the former government leader during judicial proceedings.
Another thought-provoking and emotional day for me on Saturday, ending with the promise of even more events on the following day!
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Im glad you were able to attend a mixture of events by authors familiar and new to you. It certainly sounds like they’re all people who’ve see a lot in their time. Ten years is an incredible amount of time to spend researching a book too!!
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