In Piemonte - Piemonte Feel

• Books

For many years books written by Piedmontese authors have been widely read throughout Italy. First there was Salgari, with his gripping adventures, set in Malaya; then the stories by Caterina Invernizio, and “Cuore”, the classic school story by De Amicis. Turin is also the home of major publishing houses, and in the last 20 years has hosted an important annual book fair, the Fiero del Libro d’Europa, directed by Ernesto Ferrero.

Thanks to the typically Piedmontese flair for management, talented individuals have set up, or found scope for their talents, in publishing and broadcasting organizations. Einaudi published writers like Pavese, Calvino, Natalia Ginzburg, Massimo Mila, and Norberto Bobbio. The Turin studios of the RAI national television network brought writers and thinkers like Umberto Eco, Furio Colombo, Gianni Vattimo into the public eye. Books by philosophers Nicola Abbagnano e Luigi Firpo were brought out by UTET in Turin, while Novara became the base for another major publisher, De Agostini and for the companies producing religious texts. Writers in Piedmont have proved to be an incredibly rich range of talents, which includes full time professional writers like Giovanni Arpino, Mario Soldati, Fruttero e Lucentini, alongside the legendary figures of brilliant “amateurs”, like chemistry professor and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, and attorney-at-law Beppe Fenoglio. Young readers identify with the new generation of authors, like Alessandro Baricco and Giuseppe Culicchia; and with writers of murder mysteries like Gianni Farinetti, Alessandro Perissinotto and Giorgio Faletti, a comedian from Asti who has found a new career writing hugely successful detective stories. Religious and ethical issues are treated by two Piedmontese authors: Guido Ceronetti, who is agnostic, and Vittorio Messori, a devout catholic. Among Piedmontese women writers, following in the footsteps of Marina Jarre, Gina Lagorio, Rosetta Loy, we find serious novelists like Margherita Oggero e Paola Mastrocola, but also irreverent comic writers like Luciana Littizzetto, Stefania Bertola, Anna Berra e Alessandra Montrucchio.