FESTIVALETTERATURA MANTUA
Over the past decade, illy’s collaboration with Festivaletteratura Mantua hav has spotlighted some of the world’s most promising new literary talent. Each year’s project culminates in illystories, a collection of individual works from participants in the preeminent international literary festival’s Young Writers event. The project also incorporates work from companion festivals in Hay-on-Wye (Wales) and Berlin in a collection bound by a common theme.
Each small volume of illystories, is distributed free in illycoffee bars and cafés for customers to enjoy as a little gift . Themes are as limitless as our imaginations—change, diversity, the future, even monsters —all united in expressing the promise, pleasures and fears of contemporary life
Since 2005, every edition of illywords has included contributions from established authors, participating enthusiastically to support emerging talent and the dissemination of literary culture in public places — most notably throughout the coffee bars that serve as vital hubs of social interaction.
The project asks writers to contribute an original short story, rich with evocative prose that is fast, intense, full of mood and other sensations that add pleasure and meaning during moments of pause.
Like its companion commentary magazine illywords and other illy cultural projects, stories, young artists play a vital role in illystories by developing original illustrations for each story, enriching the written word. Participating schools include Parsons School of Design in New York City, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, and Escola de Disseny i Art di Barcellona in Barcelona.
2002 saw the first edition of illystories, small books with important new literary voices, distributed to coffee bars and other fine places where illy is enjoyed.
Three years later came the first edition of illystories incorporating works from established authors. Giuseppe Cederna, Sandra Cisneros, Marcello Fois, Dacia Maraini and Colum McCann all contributed to that edition, called The Journey.
The next edition, 500,000 copies strong, was themed In the Coffee, with stories from Vincenzo Cerami, Mauro Covacich, Ardashir Vakil and Björn Larsson.
An edition themed Expression followed, counted Gianrico Carofiglio, Panos Karnezis, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Raul Montanari among contributors.
