The Italian Embassy, the Italian Publishers Association and the Frankfurt Book Fair are cooperating with the media company Bertelsmann to bring Italian literature to Berlin. Italy is the guest of honor at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair.

With the famous Blue Sofa, the Bertelsmann representative office in Berlin welcomes Italy. According to Bertelsmann, the Blue Sofa is one of the longest-lasting and most successful literary formats in German-speaking countries. It offers personalities from literature, culture, politics and society the stage on which they can present their latest books.

Since it was founded in 2000, more than 3,100 authors have taken a seat on the Blue Sofa to talk about their books at book fairs and other venues.

This fall, the Blue Sofa is moving from event to event in Frankfurt, Berlin, Gütersloh and Luxembourg.

The most prominent guests so far have included Nobel Prize winners Svetlana Alexiyevich, Mikhail Gorbachev, Günter Grass, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Herta Müller, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Orhan Pamuk, Joseph Stiglitz, Olga Tokarczuk, Mario Vargas Llosa and Mo Yan.

At the Berlin event ahead of the Frankfurt Book Fair Germany, the Italians present Viola Ardone (“Was wissen sie vom Freisein”, C.Bertelsmann), Marco Balzano (“Café Royal”, Diogenes) and Igiaba Scego (“Kassandra in Mogadishu”, S.Fischer) presented her latest books.

Red.

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