Nicola Lagioia | Crossing Thresholds

BEYOND THE WALL | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12 | 10:00 AM

What thresholds must a writer cross, and which ones do they choose to cross? Primarily those within their own work: the permeability or closure towards the surrounding or preceding literature; the relationship between stories and History, between people and characters; the hybridization of genres; the reconciliation of ethics and aesthetics. And furthermore: what does it mean to write in an era of literary awards, the supposed crisis of literary criticism and cultural journalism, and media overexposure?

Nicola Lagioia is one of the most well-known contemporary Italian writers. For minimum fax (where he directed the "nichel" series of Italian fiction), he published his first novel Tre sistemi per sbarazzarsi di Tolstoj (senza risparmiare se stessi) in 2001. Among the titles published by Einaudi are Riportando tutto a casa (2009), for which he won the Siae Prize, the Vittorini Prize, the Volponi Prize, and the Premio Viareggio 2010 for fiction; La ferocia (2014), which earned him the Premio Strega 2015, and La città dei vivi (2020). Since 2010, he has been one of the hosts of Pagina3, the daily cultural review broadcast on Rai Radio 3. From 2013 to 2015, he was a member of the selection committee for the Venice International Film Festival. From 2016 to 2024, he was the director of the Turin International Book Fair.

The event will be moderated by Roberto Falconi, literary critic and teacher at the Liceo cantonale di Bellinzona.