Italy excludes Saviano from the Frankfurt Book Fair. The Germans invite him

Government commissioner Mazza: "We have chosen authors of completely original works"

ROME – Alessandro Baricco, Claudio Magris, Dacia Maraini will be there. Scurati was invited but “he preferred not to be there”, and Paolo Giordano and Alessandro Piperno will not be there as they “had other commitments”. Roberto Saviano will be missing especially at Buchmesse, the Frankfurt Book Fair – an event with 300 thousand visitors, which will be held from 16 to 20 October. A small case, his exclusion from the list of Italian guests. Mauro Mazza, extraordinary government commissioner for the coordination of activities related to Italy’s participation as a country of honour, explained it this way: “Saviano was not invited because, on the one hand, we wanted to give a voice to those who have not had one until now On the other hand, among the criteria that inspired us, there was also that of choosing authors whose works were completely original“.

The director of the Buchmesse Juergen Boos has then said that Saviano will still be present at the Fair as a guest “of the German publishing houses”.