‘More books, freer’ with a team of curators and new governance

The cultural planning will reflect the choral spirit of the Fair. There will not be a single artistic director, but a team of curators coordinated by Paolo Di Paolo, chosen to strengthen the constant dialogue with the publishers and build a program capable of representing the plurality of contemporary perspectives and languages. Alongside the coordinator Paolo Di Paolo and Giorgio Zanchini, who will be asked to pay particular attention to current social, political and economic issues, the curatorial team will be supported by two new authoritative and representative voices of contemporaneity: Licia Troisi, one of the most loved and read Italian authors also at an international level who will have an eye on scientific and young adult themes, and Nadeesha Uyangoda, a writer highly appreciated by critics – who has just won the Campiello Opera Award First – and careful interpreter of themes related to new languages and social transformations. Their presence will help to further broaden the scope of the event, strengthening its ability to intercept different audiences and tell the cultural richness of our time.

“The idea of plural curation responds to the need to multiply the points of view, interests and passions that shape the cultural offering of a fair such as Più libri Più liberi – declared Paolo Di Paolo -. It will not be about individual sections: curators will sign the program together, in which, however, lines of reflection and paths will be increasingly recognisable, in order to connect the books and better orient those who participate. We will rethink the formats and methods of the meetings, so as to ensure that the books are a point of arrival and not a starting point. The twenty-five year edition will not have a theme, but a title in the form of a question: If you look closer, what do you see?. Questions can really add something to the public discourse. Trying to respond, each in our own way, to reality, which is so elusive and changing and often distressing, means isolating a detail that can make the difference, leading us to change our perspective, to not stop at the first impression, to break prejudices and patterns. space of possibility and trust”.

Another novelty of this path is the establishment of a Steering Committee which involves, in addition to the president of Aie Innocenzo Cipolletta, the president of Più libripiù liberi Annamaria Malato, the president of the Small Publishers of Aie Lorenzo Armando and the coordinator of the curatorial team Paolo Di Paolo directly the publishers (Isabella Ferretti, Carlo Gallucci, Renata Gorgani, Agnese Manni, Santiago Maradei), with a central role in defining the strategic lines of the event. The new organization was created with the aim of guaranteeing a vision consistent with the transformations of the contemporary publishing market and of overseeing the founding objectives of the fair: concrete support for publishing houses and their maximum valorisation.

The change will also affect the structure of the event itself. An overall redesign of the exhibition layout has been initiated to make the presence of exhibitors even more effective and improve the public experience: the aim is to give all those who participate the visibility they deserve. On the ground floor, cultural programming will enter into direct dialogue with the visitors’ journey thanks to the setting up of new spaces dedicated to events among the exhibition stands: meetings, conversations and presentations will thus intertwine with the dimension of discovery and purchase, transforming the fair into an even more lively, participatory and walkable place. The ultimate aim is to build a Fair that is perceived as a unique, fluid space, an immersive experience in which the book returns to the center as a cultural object, an opportunity for meeting and a driving force for relationships.

These changes make it necessary to reduce the overall number of stands, which will be accompanied by a new exhibitor admission process, which reflects the evolution that has affected the world of small and medium-sized publishing compared to 25 years ago. The intent is to valorise in a more adequate way the entrepreneurial subjects, who make investments, who create and provide jobs, bearers of a solid editorial project that adheres to the aims of the event. The Fair will take charge of these assessments, in the belief that this will allow it to continue to represent the best of independent Italian publishing, guaranteeing visitors that this is what they will find in the Nuvola pavilions.

“More free books is a Fair created by publishers for publishers, we never forget this – underlined the president of Aie Innocenzo Cipolletta -. The Committee is the way to formalize this reality, providing the organization of the Fair with the contribution of direct users. New governance, redesign of the spaces, new curators, valorisation of the best cultural proposals go in the direction of a More free books even closer to small and medium-sized publishers”.

“We want to make an even more beautiful Fair, even more attentive to the needs of publishers, even more participated and experienced by visitors as a place of belonging and discovery, in which they can recognize themselves and meet new authors and new books – explained president Annamaria Malato -. Più libri liberi 2026 wants to be a great, pluralist party, full of voices and opportunities for meeting. This new season opens in ideal continuity with the origins of Più libri liberi 2026, open to the general public and conceived as an opportunity to give visibility to those who don’t have enough, while at the same time accompanying their professional growth. It’s clear that we can’t build it alone: it’s a project that we publishers want to build together.”