Gurnah, Nettel, Nicholls in guest line up at Turin Book Fair

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 14 - 2021 Nobel prizewinner for literature Abdulrazak Gurnah, Mexican author Guadalupe Nettel, writer, British novelist and screenwriter David Nicholls and Argentinean transgender writer and actress Camila Sosa Villada will be among the international guests at the 36th edition of the annual Turin International Book Fair from May 9-13, the organisers said on Wednesday.
    The fair, the first to be directed by writer Annalena Benini, will have the theme 'Imaginary Life', after the collection of essays by the late Italian author Natalia Ginzburg.
    Liguria will be the guest region and German the guest language.
    There will be no guest country this year.
    "Imaginary Life is the title of my first Fair," announced Benini at a press conference in the Piemonte regional capital.
    "It is the title of a beautiful book by Natalia Ginzburg published in 1974 and recently republished. It was and is very important to me because it shows and recounts how the imaginary life moves the creative one and predicts what then happens in real life," she continued.
    "Our desire is to pay homage to the imaginary life," she said.
    The inaugural address will be given by contemporary American author Elizabeth Strout, whose 2008 novel Olive Kitteridge won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
    "Her theme will be woman starting with her characters, we are truly honoured," said Benini.
    "For the people of Turin and for Turin itself, this is an unmissable event," said Mayor Stefano Lo Russo.
    "The whole system is cooperating to make it a major event. The idea is to make the 2024 edition even more important and solid than the previous ones," he added.
    Lo Russo also said the book fair needed to send out a message of "freedom and democracy, (one that is) open to the inclusion of different cultures and not afraid to compare different ideas and different approaches to the future".
    Photo: Turin International Book Fair director Annalena Benini (ANSA).