Interview with Francesco Cevasco

Francesco Cevasco is an authoritative pen of the “Corriere della Sera” where he directed the cultural pages and is sworn in the literary prize “City of Como”.

What do you think of the future of the book after the pandemic?

“I am optimistic, we went back to reading with intensity during the quarantine and with the reopening of the bookstores the market was able to resume, many books come out first held back by the virus. The book will remain, as happened to the theater after the advent of cinema, and on TV after the advent of the web. It will have to evolve, accept the challenge of transformation“.

The danger is that many texts related to coronavirus will come to the competition.

“Much has already been written about major epidemics, there is no need to go far. It seems to have returned to the days of HIV when the first unfortunate victim of AIDS felt he was authorized to write a book on the ailments of society. I hope instead for a literature that is truly innovative, that knows how to take into account the time in which it arises and therefore also of epochal challenges such as the pandemic without making it become one's navel. I give an example. Philip Roth, author whom I respect very much, he wrote about polio well before it became an epidemic. A seer, in a sense, but its literary greatness is expressed regardless of the choice of occasion or circumstance themes. In short, I hope that the virus does not become a sort of literary catchphrase. What's left over time, however, is never what's fashionable and for this reason we have the duty to give credit to those who risk saying something new. A difficult road, someone will argue that it is utopian, but which I believe is to be cultivated”.

Lorenzo Morandotti