The border. Not as an inert separation line between individualisms, but as a living and habitable place, where – from the etymology “cum finis” – one finds ourselves together. A neutral meeting of meeting – diplomatic, indeed “negotiating” we would say today – in which diversity can also dialogue, stripping against contrasts and covering themselves with affinity. In the search for compromises capable of mitigating, if not extinguishing, hostilities. Of every rank and nature. It is a need for profound rethinking that which recalls the theme – “borders” – chosen for the 2025 edition of the Taormina International Book Festival, born fifteen years ago as a literary review and soon became a privileged global incubator, in which to bring together cultures, arts, sciences, socio -political, languages and visions, in a fertile contamination delivered to a participatory and transverse public, feeding awareness and reflections plurals, today more than ever necessary to live such a conflicting and dehumanizing contemporaneity.
Taobuk will be held from 18 to 23 June in Taormina, with a rich program and over 200 guests from 30 countries and publishing company South Gazzetta del Sud Giornale di Sicilia will be medium partner. “The theme of this year – explains Antonella Ferrara, creator of the Festival, of which she is president and artistic director – gives us the opportunity to return to that vocation that the Festival has always had, of being a metaphor for the arts, an agora of thought. The boundaries are not only geopolitical ones, but they are also and above all ideal, existential ones. We mean them by going back to the etymological origin of the term, as a common threshold through which we see the other. Through the recognition of otherness we can also define our identity ».
A dream born fifteen years ago is today a consolidated reality in international cultural scenarios
«It is an ancient dream and it makes sense to remember where it comes from. It was my life around the world that made me think that I could find a root and also give a root to this festival, where the roots of literature already sprouted since the years of the Grand Tour. The idea that brings to this festival today is to invite thinkers from all parts of the world to revive the dream of universal return to a place of comparison, to an epicenter. We incardinated it in Sicily, in Taormina ».
Taobuk 2025 celebrates literature, but also anniversaries strongly linked to its main theme
«We will remember 50 years from the first edition of Horcynus Orca, the” World Book “by Stefano D’Arrigo that we will stage on June 22 in a precious work of lights and sounds, created for the ancient theater of Taormina, dedicated to the masterpiece and the Strait of Messina. The visual of the event, inspired by the theme “Borders” entitled “Praise of nomadism”, was created by Mimmo Paladino. Among the other anniversaries: the 40 years from the American lessons of Calvino and the 100th anniversary of the birth of Camilleri ».
The 70 years of the Messina and Taormina conference will be remembered solemnly: it is urgent to speak of Europe today
«It is necessary to talk about the future of Europe and also of the boundaries that he will have, of his relations with the America of Trump but also with the new emerging powers. Being able to do it where the European spirit was born is to put the theme at the center of the contemporary debate, in the presence of the foreign ministers of the European Union. From 18 to 20 June, three days of events promoted by the Sicilian Region, the Taormina Arte Sicilia Foundation, in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Parliament and the EU Commission and the Municipalities of Messina and Taormina, who have chosen to insert them in the context of Taobuk because since 2020, from the celebration of the 65 years of the Messina and Taormina Conference, the Festival gave birth to a section of Geopolitics. A very important moment: the Taormina card will be signed, a declaration on the state of the Union “.
To the Taobuk Awards is added a special prize this year, which will debut in Taormina
«We reward excellence in literature, but also the visual arts, cinema, music, dance with the Awards assigned to Peter Cameron, Amélie Nothomb, Susanna Tamaro, Zadie Smith Javier Cercas, Ai Weiwei, Whoopi Goldberg, Gabriele Salvatores, Monica Guerritore, Pierfrancesco Favino, Jessica Pratt, Ramin Bahrami, Andrea, Andrea Sarri. I thank the Scientific Committee, chaired by Nino Rizzo Nervo. The novelty is the wise western prize, established and promoted by the Maria and Goffredo Bellonci Foundation, Strega Alberti Benevento and Taobuk. Just as we need stories, emotions, beauty and poetry, we also need ideas, analysis. On June 20 at 9 pm the prize will be awarded in the presence of the five finalists and the winner of the international non -fiction witch award, Anne Applebaum, with a particularly current work, on autocracies ».
The winning formula of Taobuk is also in its being a “widespread” event, of which the public is the protagonist
«What we do is everything for our audience, international and national, increasingly numerous and very heterogeneous, made of professionals, enthusiasts and many young people, students and students both university and schools. We all invite to the many events and in particular to the evenings at the Teatro Antico: on June 21 at 9.30 pm for the delivery of the Taobuk Awards, with the conduct of Massimiliano Ossini and with the participation of the Orchestra of the Teatro Massimo Bellini of Catania, a musical co -producer of the evening which will be broadcast on July 2 at 11 pm on Rai 1; On June 22, at 9.30 pm, the show “Horcynus Orca. Ghostly journey into the ocean of literature”, with Vinicio Capossela, Max Casacci, Caterina Murino, Linda Gennari and the participation of Davide Livermore “.