Ivrea and the ambition to write the manifesto of the book: “A special diet for readers”

Paolo Verri, creator of this extraordinary year for the city, speaks: “We would like to do what Petrini has achieved with food”

IVREA. “Promote the future of the book through Ivrea and its history, a bit like Adriano Olivetti had managed to make the brand of this city international”. Paolo Verri, born in 1966, coordinator of Ivrea Italian capital of the book 2022, cultural manager, author, a life spent organizing international events has great ambitions. «In 1988 I was a volunteer at the first Turin Book Fair – he says – We were called the sweatshirts because we wore heavy gray sweatshirts. That year I was lucky enough to accompany Natalia Ginzburg between the stands and around Turin, who at that time was translating the Recherche ». Verri then returned to the book fair as director from ’93 to ’98. Then director of Torino Internazionale, director of the Italia 150 Committee, director of events and of the Italian Pavilion at Expo 2015 and creator of Matera, European Capital of Culture 2019.

Verri how did your relationship with Ivrea start?

«Let’s start with the books, those of the Community Edition, from Paolo Volponi to Franco Fortini, which are the roots of my preparation. When I was director of the strategic plan for Turin and the metropolitan area, I had relations with the then mayor Fiorenzo Grijuela. Together we had worked on the arrival of the University and the international institute of design in Ivrea. This bond with Ivrea was then strengthened between 2011 and 2013 in Matera when I met Laura Olivetti, to whom I was linked by an affectionate friendship, and I began to work together with the Olivetti Foundation. When the mayor Sertoli and the councilor Casali called me for the candidacy dossier of Ivrea, the Italian capital of the 2022 book, I made myself available to the city free of charge ».

How does a community get involved in such a large project?

«Already the application dossier is the result of the collective work carried out with about eighty participants belonging to the book communities: readers, publishers, teachers, authors, librarians, booksellers and representatives of the digital world. The project focuses on the Community, understood in the Olivetti sense. The dissemination of the project is the result of a precise choice, inspired by Olivetti’s message: sharing is the first way to create community. This year Ivrea is available to help all operators to make reading an opportunity for development for the whole society “.

The will to create the Manifesto for the future of the book during the year as capital was decisive for the assignment of the title. Can you explain us a little better?

«This will be a great opportunity for collective reflection on reading and what the book of the future will be like, especially after the pandemic. All those who want to take part will be involved, starting with the book community: thousands of interviews with readers, booksellers, publishers and distributors ».

A challenge that looks to the future.

«Of course, it is the challenge of the next 25 years. Our ambition is to do with the book what Carlo Petrini has managed to achieve with food, teaching us that we cannot always eat the same things because we like them and that we must follow the course of the seasons. In short, a sort of diet for readers. If I want to be a person capable of understanding the world around me I have to feed my mind not only with the TV series, which are beautiful, but with a bit of non-fiction, novels, poetry, science. Our mind also needs a varied diet ». –