LETTERATURE Festival internazionale di Roma 2025

Five evenings of literature and music at the Palatine Stadium, in the Colosseum Archaeological Park, with a final evening at the Ostia Idroscalo.

The title chosen for the 24th edition of the historic Roman Summer event is “Returns”, one of the oldest and most meaningful themes in literature. In Homer’s Odyssey, Ulysses’ long journey is not only a physical return to Ithaca, but a journey of inner transformation, a journey that changes him and prepares him to reclaim his identity. However, this same theme that can also be interpreted in a contemporary context: the return to one’s roots of those who have been forced into exile or emigration, as well as the worrying return to nationalism in recent years.

The program is curated by Simona Cives, features some of the most important figures on the world literary scene and is enriched by the participation of actors and actresses such as Isabella Ragonese and Michele Riondino. The Festival will open on 8 July with Mariangela Gualtieri, followed by László Krasznahorkai, Ali Smith and Paolo Nori. Taking to the stage on the second day, Wednesday 9 July, are Tommaso Ragno (reading passages from the Odyssey), Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, the winner of the 2025 Strega Prize and, finally, Liz Moore. The evening of 11 July, thirty years after the Srebrenica massacre, will be opened by the writer Elvira Mujčić, who was born in Yugoslavia and emigrated to Italy during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, followed by Benjamín Labatut, Jenny Erpenbeck and Georgi Gospodinov. Andrea Camilleri is the protagonist of the evening of Sunday 13 July, which will feature Michele Riondino, Chiara Valerio, Antonio Franchini and Alberto Manguel. Guests on the evening of 15 July will include actress Isabella Ragonese (with an unpublished text by Flannery O’Connor, on her 100th birthday anniversary), Murata Sayaka, Éric Reinhardt and Nicoletta Verna. The final evening at the Palatine Stadium will feature the words of Vivian Lamarque, Eshkol Nevo, Nadia Terranova and Azar Nafisi.

The festival will close at the Ostia Idroscalo on 19 July, with Nicola Lagioia retracing the history of literature from Genesis to the Iliad, from Pier Paolo Pasolini to Simone Weil and Elsa Morante. The musical contributions to the festival are curated by Mokadelic, while the artwork for the 2025 edition is an illustration by artist Alessandra Carloni. The complete program is available on the cultureroma website and on the event’s social media pages. All events are free of charge, subject to availability. The meetings are streamed live on the Facebook pages of LETTERATURE Festival Internazionale di Roma, Culture Roma and on the YouTube channel of Biblioteche di Roma.

The festival is promoted by the Department of Culture of Roma Capitale, curated by the Department of Cultural Activities with organizational coordination by Zètema Progetto Cultura, in collaboration with Biblioteche di Roma, Parco Archeologico del Colosseo, Fondazione Maria e Goffredo Bellonci Liquore Strega.