Paolo Giordano, the Turin Book Fair and Chiagni & Fotti
"Really talking about books and publishing (also) with me, Pietrangelo and Giordano would have been more humiliating, useless or offensive for him, I don't quite understand?". The post of Alessandro Campi, professor of Political Science at the University of Perugia and director of the Political Review
I owe a public apology to the writer Paolo Giordano . His painful and striking withdrawal from the race for the direction of the Turin Book Fair is also (perhaps above all) my fault. As well as Giordano Bruno Guerri and Pietrangelo Buttafuoco .
"POLITICAL INTERFERENCES AT THE BOOK FAIR"
We are – I learned, you won't believe it, from the press agencies yesterday morning – the trio proposed by the Ministry of Culture as possible members (out of a total of 19) of the Salone's Editorial Committee. A proposal, not an imposition. But experienced by ours as an intolerable and unheard-of political interference.
Like an attack by the right on the autonomy of culture: autonomy that Giordano, with the three of us around, evidently could not have guaranteed. As an offense, let's face it, to culture in its highest and most noble sense.
Hence his decision to disdainfully throw in the towel. From this morning – just look at the openings of Repubblica , Corriere della Sera or La Stampa – we therefore have a new martyr of freedom of thought. Tomorrow, you will see, the controversy will rebound in foreign newspapers, with France as usual at the forefront, according to an already tested script.
CHIAGNI AND FUCK THE LEFT
Michela Murgia and Roberto Saviano are already writing their alarmed comments which we will also read tomorrow. The big case of left-wing indignation – in reality an eternal political-media “speak and fuck” capable of making censors pass for censorship – won't stop for days.
One wonders if Giorgia Meloni 's Italy isn't becoming like Iran or Russia: a hell for intellectuals and free people. But are you sure – I ask all of them – that something called a “sense of the ridiculous” doesn't exist for you too? Really the three names in question – of center-right intellectuals, as they say, that Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano, having no direct power of appointment, limited himself to suggesting in the name of a pluralism of ideas not respected primarily by those who stand up as its defenders – do they justify the dog artfully unleashed by Paolo Giordano?
Really talking about books and publishing (also) with me, Pietrangelo and Giordano would have been more humiliating, useless or offensive for him, I don't quite understand? The fact is that for reasons as futile as they are specious he has given up directing the Salone. The responsibility was also involuntarily mine and I therefore only have to apologize to him for the affront he had to suffer.
(post published by Professor Alessandro Campi on Facebook)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/paolo-giordano-il-salone-del-libro-di-torino-e-il-chiagni-fotti/ on Fri, 17 Feb 2023 08:42:22 +0000.