There is an air of celebration in Taurianova, a municipality of just under 15 thousand souls, in the province of Reggio Calabria, after its designation as Italian Book Capital 2024. But the news, which emerged even before the proclamation, gives rise to the controversy of the excluded . Following the choice made by a jury selected by the Ministry of Culture, chaired by Pierfranco Bruni and composed of Incoronata Boccia, Gerardo Casale, Antonella Ferrara and Sara Guelmi who, in the motivations, underlined “the great potential of the project”, to set fire in the dust are the mayors of the other candidate and excluded municipalities: Trapani, Grottaferrata, San Mauro Pascoli and Tito. The first citizens of the four finalist cities, in addition to evaluating the possibility of an appeal, sent a note to the Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano, asking for an urgent meeting and the self-defense suspension of the proclamation procedure.
“The request – say the mayors – is motivated by the need to guarantee the confidentiality of the investigative documents, including the minutes of the commission, until the official publication of the decree and the resolution of the Council of Ministers”. The choice of the Calabrian municipality was anticipated in recent days by the Northern League undersecretary Claudio Durigon who had publicly complimented the mayor Roy Biasi based on information received from the mayor himself, his party companion. And already on that occasion the mayors of the other four cities candidate for the title had expressed their concern, expressing “perplexity” and raising “doubts about the regularity of the competition”. In Taurianova, however, following the communication from the Ministry of Culture, the mood is completely different. Mayor Biasi appears happy with the choice made and tries to tone down the controversy, speaking of his colleagues’ uprising as a “storm in a teacup”.
“The Commission had already deliberated for some time – he specifies – it had drawn up minutes and the minutes had been filed. From this point of view I don’t think there is any kind of problem”. And then he returns to the value of the recognition obtained. “We are preparing – he says – to cross that bridge which we hope will definitively lead us to a different Taurianova, linked to the culture and the protagonists of what has been the beautiful history of our city. We have created an important library which we plan to open as soon as possible and therefore, as part of the project, we asked the Commission to be able to inaugurate it as soon as possible to make it the beating heart of the city and thus build a new Taurianova, different from the one we want to forget and which, according to Giorgio Bocca, was out of from Italy”. The Municipality has let it be known that work is already underway, “without prejudice to the wait for the documents that are now the responsibility of the government” to try to make the start of activities coincide with April 23rd in conjunction with International Book Day and copyright, established by UNESCO”.
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