THE FIRST WAS HELD ON MARCH 22 AND 23 IN PISTOIA ITALIAN LITERARY FESTIVAL COMMITTED TO CLIMATE CHANGE. THE EVENT took place on the premises of the SAN GIORGIO library, involving the elderly and children
How green literature can save the planet
In 2024, a certain trend still seems to be widespread Climate denialthat is, the tendency to believe that it is not entirely true that our planet is beginning to suffer the consequences climate change busy.
Yet we all agree that, for example, we will call the summer of 2023 the hottest on record… So what are we going to do? We seek to raise awareness through one of the most powerful tools known to man: the word.
It is with this intention that the Climate Fiction Days, an event to group and represent authors who have courageously decided to tackle the topic of climate change in their texts, whether novels or comics. The subtitle “How green literature can save the country” we could understand it as the programmatic manifesto of the festival.
Speaking of climate change
The event, conceived and directed by the writer and translator Alessandra Repossisaw a discussion between professionals on the first day, entitled “Stories about climate change: from anthropofiction to narrative reportage”.
A reflection on the ways of narrating the evolution/involution of the planet through this literary genre, Climate Fiction, which has recently attracted Italian attention, in light of the growing activism in recent years on the environmental theme.
The expression “climate fiction” (cli-fi) was launched by the journalist And Bloom in 2007, to chart a subgenre of science fiction, which addressed the climate issue and was made viral by a tweet from the writer and environmentalist Margaret Atwood.
The international literature on climate change
On the morning of March 23 were protagonists at Climate Fiction Days i international novels dealing with the environmental issue, with the relevant translators taking care of the translation of the texts into Italian. Among them the artistic director of the festival itself, Alessandra Repossiwhich together with Francesca Cosi he translated “Presence of Death” by the Swiss writer Charles Ferdinand Ramuz.
The Taiwanese writer’s novel is a mix of fantastic and other dramatically realistic elements Wu Ming-yiwith an Italian title “Mountains and clouds in the eyes”. The relationship between people and the environment comes to the fore in all its vulnerability and its translation Silvia Pozziprofessor of language and literature at the University of Milan Bicocca, conveyed the lyricism of the story perfectly.
Words and images representing climate change
The space was then dedicated to the story of climate change the comicwith the four-hand work “It’s Not the End of the World” By Francesca Riccioni and the late Combed thunder. The images blend with the text, creating a very effective product.
A theme workshop for the little ones provided by the author Flavio Soriga and the illustrator Riccardo Atzenito raise awareness among tomorrow’s adults to care for the planet they live on.
‘The smog cloud’ by Italo Calvino and climate change in 1958
“The normal course of the seasons seemed to have changed, dense cyclones swept through Europe, the beginning of summer was marked by days full of electricity, then by weeks of rain, by sudden heat and by sudden return of a cold like March. The papers ruled out that the effects of the bombs could have played a role in these atmospheric disturbances; […] Now that we had avoided talking about the weather, or having to say that it was raining or that it had cleared, we were overcome with a kind of shame, as if we were keeping quiet about some dark responsibility of ours. These are the words of the writer Italo Calvino, who wrote a story in 1958 entitled “The Smog Cloud” in the magazine “New topics”.
The relevance of Italo Calvino’s words
We are in the period of the Italian economic boom, that golden age when the prevailing optimism blinded us to any problems, and yet a sensitive soul like that of a literate man saw that something was wrong. Italo Calvino’s words resonate dramatically today and fit perfectly with the situation we are experiencing.
The writer identifies the gray cloud that envelops everything in the city with the fear that grips people and anticipates the time by more than sixty years, showing us that the state of human health, both yesterday and today, is not can be seen separately from the state of health. of his planet.