Often considered a ‘B series’ genre, fantasy has been taking its revenge in recent years. In 2024 it appears clear that Italians are becoming more and more passionate about the genre: in the year in which there is a decline in the general number of readers and around 1.7 million fewer books are sold (with lost sales of around 12 million of euros), fantasy is bucking the trend. Sales grew 27.1% from January to October this year exceeding one million books sold (1,060,000): compared to all genre fiction (such as mysteries, thrillers and romances) today fantasy covers 10 percent of the market.
However, the number of new titles published during the year remains stable, around a thousand, which means that on a production that has remained stable over the last three years, exhibition spaces in bookshops are increasing and the public is growing. This is not a sudden boom, he explained to Adnkronos Giovanni Peresson head of the Studies Office for Aie (Italian Publishers Association), but of a trend already seen in 2022 and 2023 and which also led to the birth of new publishers such as Mercurio and Il Castoro in Italy in the first ten months of 2024 Off. “It’s not a phenomenon that suddenly exploded, behind it there is a background of construction by authors and readers who have become closer over time”, explains Peresson.
What is fantasy
“Fantasy is a terrain where it is difficult to set boundaries, it is the terrain of the extraordinary, of a reality in which rules different from ours are followed”, he explained Simona Casonato of Mondadori during the meeting ‘Fantasy books and where to find them’ held at ‘Più libri Più liberi’. It is a genre that is very complex to define because it thrives on hybridizations, as demonstrated for example by the growing popularity of ‘romantasy’, a subgenre that lives at the crossroads between the fantasy story and romance.
For the data on the market in Italy presented at Più libri liberi, the national fair for small and medium-sized publishing, Aie (Italian Publishers Association), in collaboration with NielsenIQ-GfK and IE – Editorial Information, took into account the NielsenIQ-GfK classification which group fantasy and science fiction in one category. Inside we find many different souls, from ‘dark’ to ‘contemporary’, from historical fantasy to ‘urban’ fantasy up to magical realism. However, titles that already belong to children’s literature, such as the successful ‘Harry Potter’ saga, whose sales figures are therefore not considered, are excluded from this classification.
On this basis, the ranking of the best-selling titles of the year was drawn up: in first and second place there are two volumes of the saga di Rebecca Yarros edita in Italia da Sperling & Kupfer, ‘Iron Flame’ e ‘Fourth Wing’. ‘Powerless. Power and Deception’ by L. Roberts (Newton Compton) is in third place, in fourth is ‘The Three Body Problem’ by C. Liu (Mondadori). From fifth to ninth place we find five science fiction and fantasy classics: ‘Fahrenheit 451’ by R. Bradbury (Mondadori), ‘La strada’ by C. McCarthy (Einaudi), ‘Dune volume 1’ by F. Herbert (Fanucci) , ‘The Hobbit. An unexpected journey’ by JRR Tolkien (Bompiani), ‘Dune volume 2’ (Fanucci). ‘Half a soul’ closes the chart. Half of a Soul’ by O. Atwater (Rizzoli). Not
Readers’ motivations behind success
Although fantasy is often spoken of as an escapist literature, both the head of the Aie Studies Office and the publishers present at the ‘Fantasy books and where to find them’ meeting agree that it is quite the opposite. “Fantasy is not a narrative of escape from reality, on the contrary it is a key to understanding the present time“, so Giovanni Peresson told Adnkronos.
“Fantasy is becoming a genre that everyone feels they can get into“he declared Simona Casonato by Mondadori. “Those who read fantasy – he continued – look for a key to understanding the present that is not the obvious one. Often authors create new worlds to change the rules and send strong messages and powerful visions. Fantasy has not only been a tool for experimentation, a forerunner of literary trends, but the place in which to pursue themes and issues of contemporary relevance”.
The publisher’s colleague Mercurio echoes this, Tiziano Cancelli: “We live in increasingly simplified realities, fantasy stories manage to have an oblique look at today and to read reality in other and alien ways. Just take Tolkien as an example who said he had not written a metaphor, but an effective look at society with his novels set in Middle-earth”. (Of Corinna Spirito)