It is of books, of Italian language and of stories of women we speak today, because in a few days New York will welcome a special guest arrived directly from Piedmont.
New York is, par excellence, the city where world cultures meet, contaminate and reinvent. Here no culture remains closed in itself but each becomes an opportunity to get acquainted, to open the doors and invite others to enter. And it is precisely in this continuous exchange, made of languages that mix and stories that pass by hand in hand, that intercultural sharing stops being an abstract concept and becomes daily experience. In this exchange the language has a special role: it is the most immediate signal to recognize itself without need of presentations but it is also the most direct bridge between two cultures, the instrument through which to tell to those who are next to us and, at the same time, let themselves be told.
To understand what the festival will bring to the city, you have to take a step back. “Contemporary. Words and stories of women” was born in 2020 in Biella, the historic City of wool, within the cultural association BI-BOx and an idea of Irene Finiguerra and Barbara Masoni. She was born in a difficult year to forget, that of pandemic, and was born first of all online, with a series of social appointments: a quote every Monday morning to start the week with inspiration, portraits of writers to know or to read, a column dedicated to women not to forget. The goal, from the beginning, is to create a space to confront, dream and design. In October of the same year comes the first live edition, in the rooms of Palazzo Gromo Losa, with over twenty guests among writers, journalists, economists, musicists and historians. Since then the festival has grown after edition, conquering an important role in the national panorama and welcoming names like Annalena Benini, Teresa Ciabatti, Valeria Parrella, Vera Gheno, Melissa Panarello and Francesca Giannone. Today Contemporary lives all year round, with the meetings of Contemporanea365, the Contemporary Youth project dedicated to the younger readers and the Le Scomposte course on the writers of the past. The seventh edition has just ended in Biella with a theme that seems to be chosen for this overseas journey: “Geographies of friendship”.
The connection with New York was actually in the air. Last year the festival had in fact connected Biella to the Italian library SullaLuna with two distance meetings dedicated to the writers Arianna Farinelli and Chiara Marchelli. This year that virtual bridge finally becomes real with “Contemporanea goes to New York”, the first American edition of the festival, made possible thanks to the patronage and contribution of the Italian Institute of Culture and the Consulate General of Italy in New York and built around the theme Italian Women Writing. The Italian language between memory, present and new generations: the Italian language told as a living matter, able to cross epochs, generations and oceans. “I spent more than 20 years in New York, and one of the things that conquered me of this city is its ability to create opportunities for encounter and connections, and I know it’s a feeling that shares anyone who has lived here,” says Annalisa Menin, co-curator of the festival. “We chose to debut just in view of the Italian Language Week in the World because we like the idea of inserting ourselves into this plurality of stories related to Italy and our language, and what better occasion for a festival whose full name is Contemporary. Words and stories of women? ”
The program opens Thursday, October 15, from 18.00 to 19.00, at the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, at 686 Park Avenue, with The Real Freedom for a Woman: Alba de Céspedes, a meeting dedicated to one of the great authors of the twentieth century. Writer, poet and partisan, Alba de Céspedes is the protagonist thanks to the research work of Olga Campofreda, researcher with PhD at University College London, on materials preserved in the Archives of the Mondadori Foundation. With her dialogue Isabella Livorni, PhD, Assistant Professor of the Department of Italian Studies of New York University, in a meeting coordinated by Claudio Pagliara, director of the Italian Institute of Culture of New York. The appointment anticipates the celebrations for the thirty years since the disappearance of the writer, who died in Paris in November 1997. On the same occasion will be presented the contest New Generations Across the Ocean, addressed to the students of Italians of NYU: who will win will be host of Contemporary in Italy in May 2027 for a cultural tour that will depart from Biella to then touch Turin in the days of the International Book Fair, Santo Stefano Belbo on the tracks of Cesare Pavese and Milan with its archives and its foundations.
On Friday, October 16, Olga Campofreda will hold a lecture at Columbia University, while in the evening the festival will officially present itself to the press and the New York network with a dinner by invitation from San Carlo Osteria Piemonte, in the heart of SoHo, where chef Davide Iacoboni will sign a menu inspired by Piedmontese excellence.
Saturday 17 October will be the most intense day of the festival, with a program that accompanies the public throughout the day. It starts at 11.00 from SullaLuna, at 41 Carmine Street, with Becoming a Writer with Stefania Auci & Marta Perego: the author of the Florio saga in conversation with journalist Marta Perego. More than the presentation of a book will be a story of the human and professional path of a writer, from the birth of the vocation to the long research work that preceded the lions of Sicily, to the international success that changed her life. To do as a conductor thread will also be his last book, Cunti, stories, novels. The books of my life (Mondadori, 2026), dedicated to the readings that formed it. The conversation will follow a literary brunch, organized with IWUSA – Italian Women USA, to continue talking about books and stories along with the author and the Italian community of New York, around a shared table: and is there perhaps something more Italian than this? The places are limited and the reservation is mandatory on Eventbrite.
In the afternoon, at 14.00, always from SullaLuna, part Flâneuse: New York, six times – Literary Walking Tour with Marta Perego, a literary walk between West Village, Greenwich Village, Washington Square, SoHo and East Village. Six stages and six questions, one for each stop: desire, future, change, identity, independence and friendship. Elena Ferrante, Alba de Céspedes, Jhumpa Lahiri, Claudia Durastanti, Patricia Highsmith, Patti Smith, Edith Wharton, Sylvia Plath and Sigrid Nunez, together with those of other Italian and international writers, while Marta Perego will tell the relationship of these authors with New York, turning the city into a real literary map. Three hours of walk, mandatory reservation on Eventbrite, cost 35 dollars.
The day continues from 17.00 to 19.00 at Rizzoli Bookstore, at 1133 Broadway, with “From History to Fiction with Stefania Auci & Simona Siri Gerstein”: Auci will retrace with the journalist the saga of Florio, from I Leoni di Sicilia (2019) to L’alba dei Leoni (2026), the research carried out to give her life and her international fortune. The meeting is free, with registration on Eventbrite. And for the duration of the festival, Piadi – La Piadineria, an Italian company that has chosen New York to expand its international journey, will host a contemporary corner with short conversations in video format and podcast along with women of the cultural, professional and entrepreneurial Italian and international community.
Behind this project is BI-BOx, with the artistic direction of Irene Finiguerra and the co-curacy of Annalisa Menin, responsible for international relations, together with Barbara Masoni, Stefania Biamonti, Laura Colmegna, Patrizia Bellardone and Mariangela Rossetto. The festival has the patronage and contribution of the Italian Institute of Culture and Consulate General of Italy in New York, the collaboration and contribution of NYU and the collaboration of Rizzoli Bookstore, SullaLuna, IWUSA and the Arnoldo Foundation and Alberto Mondadori.
A project designed to talk to everyone, not only to the Italian community. “Our reference audience is transversal, and this is a point to which we keep a lot,” explains Annalisa Menin. “With our guests we touch universal themes, which can interest anyone who loves stories and literature, regardless of which origin, age and gender. To books and people, we ask the same thing: to help us read the world around us. ”
There is something particularly exciting in the idea that a festival born in a small Piedmont town, in a year when the whole world was closed in the house, arrives today to walk through the streets of the Big Apple. It is the demonstration that the roots, when they are solid, do not hold but push far. And it is a journey in which those who have made the same journey, from an Italian city to New York, can not help to recognize themselves at least a little.
A journey that, however, has just begun. “We already anticipate the dates of 2027: we return to New York from 14 to 16 October!”, Annalisa Menin announced. “While we prepare ourselves for this first edition, we have only one certainty regarding the next, that the project will grow through relationships. The one with the public, with the institutions and the realities that already exist in New York. We are always ready to network and open to new occasions of collaboration. ”
The program of Contemporary goes to New York
October 15 | 6–7 PMItalian Cultural Institute of New York, 686 Park AvenueThe Real Freedom for a Woman: Alba de Céspedes
October 17 | 11 AM–1 PMSullaLuna Bookstore, 41 Carmine StreetBecoming a Writer with Stefania Auci & Marta Perego
October 17 | 2–5 PMStarting at SullaLuna Bookstore, 41 Carmine StreetFlâneuse: New York, six times – Literary Walking Tour with Marta Perego
October 17 | 5–7 PMRizzoli Bookstore, 1133 BroadwayFrom History to Fiction with Stefania Auci & Simona Siri Gerstein
The appointment is therefore in New York from 15 to 17 October: a special occasion to share with the community, to discover how much the Italian language can make you feel at home, even here. All information and complete program are available on contemporary-festival. com.
L’articolo From Piedmont to New York: Contemporary debut in America proviene da IlNewyorkese.
