Closing today, full theaters and record foreign publishers for presence in Italy

The Buchmesse 2024 of Italy Guest of Honor ends today in Frankfurt, with over 230 publishers and literary agents from our country present. “We have arrived here through a difficult path, also going through strong moments of conflict and misunderstandings – explained Innocenzo Cipolletta, president of the Italian Publishers Association -. But we have always believed that we had to commit ourselves to supporting the freedom of expression of authors and to bring the entire richness and complexity of our publishing and our literature to the Buchmesse and we did so by comparing ourselves with everyone. We are recording a significant increase in attendance and business volumes among publishers inside and outside the Collective Stand. It was the right path and we see the results today and we think we will see them even more in the coming months and years in terms of sales of translation rights. In this sense, the support of the institutions will be fundamental, also through the system of tenders for translations which must be strengthened and rationalised”.

Record sales of rights and attention towards Italian publishing. At the end of the five days of the Fair, the last two and a half days also open to the non-professional public, there are full rooms for the meetings of the literary program organized by AIE with the coordination of the Extraordinary Commissioner of the government, as well as for those of the professional program , again curated by AIE with the support of ICE – Agenzia and Italia Ospite d’Onore 2024. Satisfaction among the publishers and literary agents present independently or within the Italian Collective Stand organized by ICE – Agenzia with AIE.

Gianluca Foglia, General Director of Feltrinelli’s Content Center, speaks of “an important opportunity to give light and visibility to the most literary Italian narrative by enhancing the many different voices that animate it. Proof of this is the great attention for L’anniversario, the new novel by Andrea Bajani which we will publish in January and which has already been sold all over the world, and the interest of many European publishers for Alma, the novel by Federica Manzon which just won the Campiello prize.”

Francesco Anzelmo, general director of Mondadori, announces that “Spera, the autobiography of Pope Francis, will be released in 80 countries and 20 different languages, Everything asks for salvation, by Daniele Mencarelli, in 15 countries, Paolo Nori (He’s still bleeding and I warn you that I live for the last time) is sold, among other countries, in Russia and France, with a lot of interest also for Valentina D’Urbano and for the debutant Edoardo Vitale”. Cristina Foschini, rights office of the Mauri Spagnol publishing group, states that “quantitative data cannot be given because many things end after Frankfurt, but in foreign sales two important writers of different genres have aroused a lot of interest: Alessia Gazzola had great response thanks to the new project, Miss Bee, an Agatha Christie mystery with shades of Jane Austen perfectly suited to her and Rokia, queen of our dark romance, increasingly appreciated. We also record the consolidation of catalog authors with the excellent sales of Francesca Giannone’s new works Domani, Tomorrow and Erin Doom, Arcadia, and the renewed interest also in historical sagas. Definitely a growing and lively Frankfurt.”

“We return from Frankfurt with around 45 titles sold abroad – explains Jacopo Gori, Giunti’s Book Trade Director –. Milena Palminteri’s book did very well. Like the bitter orange (Bompiani), it is our discovery that we care about very much. The author will be translated in a large number of countries and by famous publishers including Simon and Schuster, HarperCollins France, and then Stroki in Russia, Atheneum in Hungary, Presença in Portugal, Book Zone for Romania, HarperCollins in Holland. Among our most consolidated authors: Giulia Caminito, Campiello Prize in 2021, reaches ten translations: Germany, France, Spain, Catalonia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Holland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary”.

Andrea Gessner, night editor, speaks of “an unprecedented interest in our books and in general in Italian non-fiction, especially the more literary one”. Among the most requested titles in the publishing house’s catalog is Giulia Siviero’s essay, Making feminism and the Houses we will be, by Luca Molinari. In the Il Castoro publishing house they underline the interest “in Italian illustrators, considered among the best in the world. The most requested for us – from 25 international publishers – is the book Sometimes the Darkness Comes by Francesco Morgando, with illustrations by Melinda Berti. Italian comics are also very popular. We greatly appreciated the graphic novel Tessa Presidente by Susanna Mattiangeli and Kanjano, scheduled for spring 2025. Finally, also thanks to the presence of the author Marta Palazzesi, in the official delegation, a lot of interest and requests for the sequel Sal, from the desert to the river , out October 29.”

Elisa Dicecca, rights office at Hoepli explains: “We are very happy with the progress of important collaborations such as the one with Spain, where we have just sold the Illustrated Fashion manual by Irene Festa. We also saw growing interest from Chinese publishers and started a dialogue on audiobook production. Finally, we have finalized the important sale of a classical Chinese language university textbook for the US market, with the publisher Brill, an operation with which we are extremely satisfied.”

For Emanuela Anechoum, rights office of e/o: “We have certainly noticed an increase in sales in previous years, in preparation for this edition of the Buchmesse. The German market in particular was more receptive than usual. In the last year, for example, we had a literary debut, The Wrong Part by Davide Coppo, which very quickly was pre-emptioned in France and Germany, and was then sold in Holland, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Greece… In the coming weeks we will certainly reap the fruits of the work done at the fair.”

Literary agent Carmen Prestia talks about “lucky and abundant Frankfurt”: “I have received offers from many publishers who had already published the first book for Beatrice Salvioni and who want to continue publishing her with La Malacarne (Einaudi): Germany, Penguin Random House for English, France, Spain, Eastern countries, Serbia, Poland, Holland, Finland, Denmark… We have closed the very last languages ​​for Viola Ardone, translated all over the world. Oliva Denaro, his second novel, had an offer, which was accepted, from an Arab publisher, when previously it had been rejected due to the themes it deals with. Great interest and a first offer from France for La Strangera, by Marta Idala (Guanda).