Kurkov in Pisa, Ukrainian literature at the book festival

The Pisa Book Festival reaches its twenty-fourth edition, scheduled from October 2 to 4. Among the guests is Andrei Kurkov, the Ukrainian writer who this year received the Special Prize from the Orwell Foundation, the British foundation linked to the name of George Orwell that every year awards works of non-fiction and fiction capable of clearly recounting present-day political events. In Pisa, Kurkov took part in a public dialogue together with Massimo Tria and Francesca Lazzarin, two scholars who work on Slavic literatures and translation.

This year’s Pisa edition also confirms its commitment to the Pisa Book Translation Awards, the recognition that the festival has for years dedicated to the less visible but decisive work of the publishing chain: those who bring foreign works into Italian. Among this year’s finalists are Federica Di Lella, Silvia Pozzi and Antonino Esposito, names that have long circulated in the world of Italian literary translation.

The choice to bring together in the same programme a Ukrainian writer honoured for the political value of his writing and an award dedicated to translators is no coincidence for a festival that for twenty-four editions has tried to hold together two vocations: that of a showcase for foreign authors and that of recognition for those who make them readable in Italy. Kurkov, an author known for novels that blend satire and the chronicle of his country, represents in this sense an exemplary case: his writing reaches the Italian public only through translation work, the same work that the festival honours on the same day.

It should be noted that the news currently comes from a single source, the official website of the Pisa Book Festival; no independent confirmation of the programme details reported is currently available.

The festival closes on Sunday, October 4, with the awards ceremony for the Translation Awards among the final events on the schedule.