Oblivion, in Rome a new fair dedicated to fantasy, horror and weird

“All was born from a pizza in San Lorenzo together with Claudio Kulesko, Paolo Di Orazio and Edoardo M. Rizzoli”, he explains to Adnkronos Emman misleading to the editorial management of the event. “We wanted to reiterate the literary artistic value of the world of fantastic literature, which in Italy has few platforms in which to network and in which to have dignity, and so we inspired ourselves in events such as ‘Strangemondi’ and ‘Marginal’ that take place in Milan, To create something similar, “he says.

To the city of the other economy, in the Testaccio district of Rome, on 22 and 23 February45 Italian independent publishing houses offer their books and a program full of meetings, which will be held between 10 and 20 on Saturday and Sunday. “No classic presentations, but small conferences on the themes in which we managed to involve all the publishers,” explains Pilia. And so from the climatic crisis to feminism, from artificial intelligence to emotional relationships there are many topics that will be addressed by authors and publishers through the lens of gender literature.

In the year that has just ended, there has been a drop in the general number of readers, yet the fantasy is against the trend: sales in 2024 grew by 27.1% from January to October, exceeding the million books sold. Did the Italians rediscover a genre considered for a long time of ‘Serie B’? “Italian readers and readers – explains Pilia – have always read so much fantastic literature, but before it was less monitored. We think of the success necklace ‘Urania’, which comes out on newsstands and is not traced. But in recent years there has certainly been a growth of the editorial ecosystem: There are more editors, multiple translators, many genre publishing houses were born that brought a ‘know -how’ that was previously the prerogative of academic. Quality has increased, but also the speech around the genre, with a great work of rediscovery of Italian fantasy “.

There is no unique motivation behind the growing of interest recorded in recent years: on the one hand there are the success of literary and cinematographic/television sagas such as ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Hunger Games’ or ‘The throne of swords’, from ‘Other there are those who believe that fantasy, with its metaphors, is a useful tool to interpret the present time. Emmanuele Pilia is keen to underline the most important aspect when new readers must be approached: “I believe that the moralistic idea that reading is useful and necessary has damaged literature. Reading is fun, it’s nice, it’s fig. You can compare a football match or dinner outside. We must desacralize the reading to give it value And we, with our event, have focused everything on this concept also to bring those who have not yet discovered the fantastic “.

The event, which benefits from the patronage of the Municipality of Rome, of the Department of Culture and the I Town Hall, is completely free and will not only be an opportunity for readers, but also for those who dream of working in the field. In fact, during the fair the Short stories prize“dedicated to the authors and authors who want to explore the themes of horror, fantasy, science fiction and weird”, reads the official website, and who will thus have the opportunity to submit their writing to a jury of publishers experts, present at the fair. There are also several special mentions, with related prizes and plates, for the works that will stand out for originality and style.