Scritture giovani (Young writers)
Young writers create short stories: the ideal companion to a coffee break
Scritture Giovani (young writers) is a project of the Festivaletteratura in Mantua, Italy, which illycaffè has supported since its inception.
This literary festival invades the entire city for a few days, occupying squares, streets, museums and bars. It is an event where the written word blends in with the spoken word, where literature is read aloud and where writers and non-writers mingle and share the world of literary culture.
And within this, there is Scritture Giovani, the project giving voice to young European writers, putting them to the test within the defined, concentrated measure of a short story, an intensity lasting just few pages which can be absorbed in the space of a coffee break at a bar table.
Scritture Giovani links three other literary festivals: together they select young writers to write a short story on a theme. Each year these short stories are published in a volume in several languages and read to the public by the authors themselves in each of the four cities: Mantua, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye in Wales and Bergen in Norway.
The Scritture Giovani themes so far:
Things change, with stories by Rajeev Balasubramanyam, Davide Longo, Marco Mancassola, Ingo Niermann, Silke Scheuermann and Rachel Trezise
Borders, with stories by Bjarte Breiteig, Richard John Evans, Angharad Price, Tilman Rammstedt and Flavio Soriga
Monsters, with stories by Ingeborg Arvola, Valeria Parrella, Owen Sheers and Gernot Wolfram
Elsewhere, with stories by Marco Archetti, Fflur Dafydd, Gunnhild Øyehaug, Antje Rávic Strudel and Daniel Odija
Casablanca, with stories by Cristiano Cavina, Kirsten Fuchs