The Polish Book Institute

The Turin International Book Fair, or Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino, opened yesterday. This is the thirty-fifth edition of the event - the first where you can visit the Polish stand, prepared by the Book Institute. 

The theme for this year's edition of the fair is Atraverso lo specchio (“Through the Looking Glass”). In this way, the event's organisers wish to pay tribute to the author of Alice in Wonderland and, simultaneously, emphasise the need to break away from overwhelming reality with the help of the imagination.

The event was inaugurated by a meeting with Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich, hosted by Loredana Lipperini.

The Salone Internazionale del Libro Torino is the largest and most important event in the Italian publishing market. Every year, the Turin International Book Fair attracts more than a thousand publishers from the Apennine Peninsula, who occupy an exhibition area of around 110,000 square metres in the four pavilions of the Lingotto Fiere.

As a unique addition this year, on the weekend days of the fair, readers will be able to admire the Pista 500 – the Pinacoteca Agnelli’s art project on the roof on the congress centre created on the iconic FIAT car test track. 

The Turin fair is primarily aimed at an Italian audience, which is why a very rich and exciting programme has been prepared, as well as many literature-related attractions. The Book Institute, in cooperation with the organisers and the Kellereman publishing house, is organising a meeting with the author Małgorzata Rejmer to promote the Italian edition of her reportage Bukareszt. Krew i kurz (“'Bucharest. Dust and Blood”). The event will take place on Sunday at 16:15 in the Sala Internazionale and will be hosted by Andrea Morinelli, a journalist from the Corriere della Serra newspaper.

The programme also includes a space for agents and rights managers to hold business talks at the Rights Corner.

For the first time this year, the Book Institute organised an information stand of 16m2, where readers can purchase Italian translations of Polish books, as well as learn about Polish literature and its latest trends. In this way, we aim to increase the visibility of Polish books and authors, and thus the number of translations from Polish into Italian.

This year's regional guest of the event is Sardinia, and the Country of Honour is Albania.

The Turin International Book Fair will last until Monday 22 May.