A literary festival that makes “reading” its strong point. It is held in Casali del Mancoin the Presila of Cosenza, for a good eight years, in the suggestive seventeenth-century setting of the Convent of San Francesco di Paola, in the locality of Pedace. The Reading Festival – Readingpromoted by UniterpreSila Aps, in collaboration with the Circolo Culturale Prometeo88 and with the patronage of the municipality of Casali del Manco, wants to continue to establish itself as an entity outside the ordinary and canonical schemes, beyond the “bookish” and frontal presentations, of which, perhaps, in Calabria there is now an abundant example. The appointment this year is from tomorrow to September 8thfor a three-day event dedicated to books and, in particular, to the pleasure of reading and leafing through their pages.
“Reading is the way books are presented,” say Ida Nicoletti and Stefania Martucci, respectively president and vice president of UniterpreSila Aps and artistic directors, with singer-songwriter Gaspare Tancredi, of the rich program of events, “coming out of the pages and coming to life thanks to the voices of exceptional readers and actors. A magical atmosphere is created when a writer offers us his work and catapults us into his intimacy, full of feelings, experience and emotions that are then seen again in the moved eyes of the spectators.” The entire staff, or rather the “Reading” family, in fact, with a strong female pre-eminence, manages to involve the community and make the loyal audience empathize with the authors who, after a few minutes of presentation, sit with him and listen to the actors who immerse themselves in reading the books. «For eight years a sort of ritual of speaking out loud has been repeated in the convent of Pedace» Gaspare Tancredi also says «The Reading Festival continues to be, year after year, a gamble, perhaps a folly, in a Calabria that boasts an ever-increasing number of publishing houses, but which punctually, without denying itself, wears the black jersey in the reader rankings in the regions of Italy».
Among the various guests, this year, Carmen Verde, finalist at the Strega 2023 and finalist in the latest Sila Award, Mimmo Gangemi, the cartoonist Vincenzo Filosa, Antonella Perrotta and then actors, musicians, photographers, designers. Yes, because the rich program of the festival includes every year a large space designed for the little ones, with workshops and reading activities for children, thanks to the collaboration of experts in the sector, for example this year the Libreria Juna, the illustrator Francesco Abbadessa, the Libreria Raccontami and the famous publisher for the little ones, Coccole Books. And then music, exhibitions, performances, theater and tastings of typical local dishes prepared by the expert hands of the members of the University of the Third Age “Ilde Turco Dodaro”. All elements that will enrich the cloister and the rooms of the fascinating Convent which is, among other things, “place of the heart” of the Fai. Built in 1617, on the remains of the monastery of the brotherhood of Santa Maria della Pietra, the Convent of San Francesco di Paola in the Pedace area stands out in its grandeur and beauty: a location to be experienced and admired.
“Let others boast of the pages they have written, I am proud of those I have read”, said Jorge Luis Borges and his friends in Reading repeat it, like a mantra, like a stream that runs in a desert. And water, you know… humanity cannot do without it.