The Ins and Outs of Publishing at Testo 2025
TESTO (How to become a book) literary fair returns for its fourth edition at the Stazione Leopolda from February 28 to March 2, 2025. The fair, organised by Pitti Immagine, is dedicated to contemporary publishing and its protagonists. Designed to bring book lovers together for three days, Testo has over 200 events which will allow visitors to understand the mechanisms of all things related to publishing. The fair will be open from 10 am – 8 pm on all three days and visitors can to book tickets to events and general entry online. Entry is €18 for all three days, or €10 per day and can be purchased on the door.
176 publishing houses will have stands, each offering a selection of titles chosen from their own catalogue and from new releases; 44 publishers will be making their debut at this year’s edition of the fair.
Inside the Stazione Leopolda, visitors will find the seven stations that represent the format of TESTO, which is the architecture around which the entire industry revolves. They focus on every step of the publishing industry and draw attention to the numerous stages needed to get a book in your hands. The stations are the manuscript, the flap, the translation, the sign, the story, the bookstore, and the reader.
The theme this year is stare, which in Italian means ‘to be.’ The power of being to listen, of being to read, of being to think, and of being together – it is an invitation to stop and contribute with greater awareness to the debate around us. Among the authors present are Luciana Castellina, Tracy Chevalier (author of the NY Times best-seller, Girl with a Pearl Earring), Francesco Costa, and Tim Ingold.
TESTO has also planned a series of tributes. some in English, planned to remember some of the greatest writers and their achievements. There will be a workshop on Jane Austen 250 years after her death curated by Liliana Rampello, which will be dedicated to the incipit and ending of Pride and Prejudice and the history of its many translations. Further tributes include those to Dolores Prato, Andrea Camilleri, Flannery O’Connor, Raffaele La Capria, Ursula K. Le Guin, and The Great Gatsby, 100 years after its publication. Visitors will be able to traverse Fitzgerald’s masterpiece station by station: from the history of its translations to the writing and launching of the book, to the flaps and covers that for a century have accompanied this classic piece of 20th century literature.
The literary fair will also host a special newsstand: PITTI Mags. It will be set up in the Stazione Leopolda and feature more than 100 magazines, including magazines on art, architecture, design, fashion, furniture, food, cosmetics, music, literature, technology, and wellness.
A new feature is Testofficina, a series of seminars with the most influential professionals in international publishing, which will be held at Stazione Leopolda and Polimoda on Friday, February 28. The focus is on graphic design, radical publishing, and comic writing. There will be two in English, the first one being ‘The most beautiful text covers’ run by Guy Meldem of Maximage (10 am – 2 pm). Participants will be encouraged to explore book design through selecting the most beautiful covers at the publishers’ booths at the fair. Choices will then inform the basis of a discussion with the publishers and participants on the relationship between a book cover and its contents.
The other seminar held in English is ‘In and Against Empire: Verso Books and the Challenges of Radical Publishing’ (3 – 5:30 pm). New Left Books (renamed Verso books in the early 1980s) launched in 1970 as the result of a global movement in 1968 and the rising anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist left around the world. The seminar will illustrate how Verso has met the challenge of epochal changes, adapting some and resisting others, and how it has sought to define a radical new publishing project for the 21st century. (Mina Lozanova)
For more information and booking links, including the full programme, visit testo.pittimmagine.com
