Italy presents its program of activities for the FIL 2026

Italy is once again taking center stage in Mexico. Eighteen years after its last participation, Italy will once again be the Guest of Honor country from the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), one of the world's leading events dedicated to culture and publishing and, in absolute terms, the most important fair for the Spanish-language book market, which this year celebrates its fortieth edition.

The appointment will be the 28 6 November to December. A total of 61 authors will showcase the variety and pluralism of Italian publishing through the events of the literary program, whose heart will be the Italian Pavilion within the Fair. There, more than thirty publishers will exhibit, and there will be a bookstore with displays and sales of books by Italian authors, both in their original language and in Spanish translations.

The Italian participation will also include ten exhibitions, concerts and other initiatives that will cover everything from gastronomy to film including academic exchanges. The program will extend throughout Guadalajara and will propose a great journey of discovery of Italian cultureInspired by the words of the writer Umberto Eco (“The world speaks to us like a great book”), ten years after his death.

The initiative was presented today at the Farnesina Palace, headquarters of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, during an event in which representatives of all the institutions that made it possible participated: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, together with the Italian Embassy in Mexico City and the Italian Cultural Institute of Mexico City; the Ministry of Culture, through the General Directorate of Libraries and Copyright, the General Directorate of Shows, the General Directorate of Film and Audiovisual with Cinecittà, the General Directorate of Museums and the Center for Books and Reading; the ICE Agency for the promotion abroad and internationalization of Italian companies; and, with its collaboration, the Italian Publishers Association.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation was represented by Minister Antonio Tajani, while the Ministry of Culture was represented by Undersecretary Giampiero Cannella. Also participating were the president of the FIL, José Trinidad Padilla López; its CEO, Marisol Schulz Manaut, and the Mexican ambassador to Italy, Genaro Lozano.

Every year, The FIL brings together more than 900 writers and 18 professionals. from the publishing sector, 2,800 publishing houses from more than 60 countries and an audience of nearly one million visitors. Over 3,000 activities take place across more than 43,000 square meters of exhibition space over nine days. The Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) is also one of the main venues for the exchange of publishing rights in Spanish, the language that constitutes the primary export market for rights for the Italian publishing industry.

“Italy’s participation as Guest of Honor at the Guadalajara International Book Fair It represents an important recognition and a strategic opportunity to strengthen the presence of the Italian publishing industry. In the Hispanic American sphere, the Italian book industry is the leading cultural sector in our country. Promoting Italian books abroad is a fundamental tool of growth diplomacy: each translated work contributes to highlighting our cultural identity and our exports. The Book Fair will be an outstanding showcase for an Italy that unites tradition and innovation and for strengthening cultural and historical ties with Mexico and all of Latin America,” the minister stated. Antonio Tajani.

José Trinidad Padilla LópezThe president of the FIL said that celebrating the fortieth edition of the Fair with Italy as the Guest of Honor “is a cause for great joy. This meeting acquires incalculable historical value, because It coincides with the recent commemoration of 150 years of diplomatic relations between Mexico and ItalyWe are talking about a country distinguished by its exceptional aesthetic genius, intellectual audacity, and artistic mastery that have inspired the entire world. Reconnecting with the universal roots of Dante Alighieri, Boccaccio, and Pirandello, and intertwining them with the vibrant creative tensions of our time, will allow us to build a direct bridge between our publishing communities and our creators. We are ready to write a memorable chapter in this shared garden of literaturewhere the entire fascinating spectrum of Italian culture will once again flourish in Guadalajara, consolidating an unparalleled platform to surprise our audience and strengthen the lasting bond between our cultures.”

“Italy’s participation represents a significant moment for the Guadalajara International Book Fair, which celebrates its fortieth edition in 2026. It is about a country with an extraordinarily rich literary and publishing tradition"whose influence has been decisive in the formation of Western thought, arts and culture and which, at the same time, possesses a lively, diverse and constantly renewing contemporary scene," added the general director of the FIL, Marisol Schulz Manaut. 

“In Mexico, we will showcase the Italy of today and the vitality of its publishing scene through a program that will bring together more than 60 authors, both young and established, from the fields of narrative, essay, illustration, comics, and children's and young adult literature. The delegation will represent the wealth of an industry made up of more than five thousand publishing houses, which publish more than 70 titles each year. Guadalajara is a particularly important fair for Italian publishing, as Spanish is its main export market for translation rights and accounted for 15 percent of sales in 2024. “We want these figures to continue growing: since 2001, sales of translation rights worldwide have increased fivefold,” said Innocenzo Cipolletta, president of the Italian Publishers Association.

The  61 authors who will attend Guadalajara are: Viola Ardone, Bruno Arpaia, Stefania Auci, Paolo Bacilieri, Andrea Bajani, Alessandro Baricco, Violetta Bellocchio, Annalena Benini, Daria Bignardi, Mario Calabresi, Giulia Caminito, Giuditta Campello, Alessandro Campi, Olga Campofreda, Giorgio Caravale, Elena Cattaneo, Aldo Cazzullo, Stefano Ciccone, Emanuele Coccia, Maurizio de Giovanni, Mario Desiati, Erin Doom, Claudia Durastanti, Dario Ferrari, Giordano Bruno Guerri, Helena Janeczek, Felicia Kingsley, Vincenzo Latronico, Antonella Lattanzi, Roberta Lepri, Vittorio Lingiardi, Milo Manara, Federica Manzon, Daniela Marcheschi, Alessandro Masi, Rosa Matteucci, Susanna Mattiangeli, Guido Mazzoni, Francesca Melandri, Luigi Nacci, Fabian Negrin, Mauro Novelli, Matteo Nucci, Laura Pariani, Valeria Parrella, Lorenzo Pavolini, Paolo Pecere, Alberto Pellai, Pera Toons, Aurelio Picca, Laura Pugno, Veronica Raimo, Alessandro Raveggi, Davide Rondoni, Stenio Solinas, Elena Stancanelli, Marco Steiner, Nicole Tecchio, Carlo Vecce, Nora Venturini and Nicoletta Verna.

Italy will also have a prominent presence at FIL Niños, whose graphic identity will be handled by the illustrator Nicole TecchioThe program for girls, boys and young people will bring together different expressions of Italian literature and illustration.

As part of this broad cultural program, the ten announced exhibitions will be distributed among the spaces of the FIL (Guadalajara International Book Fair) and various museums in Guadalajara. Museum of Arts of the University of Guadalajara (MUSA) will receive Caravaggio, , dedicated to the artist who transformed 17th-century European painting, while the Cabañas Museum will house Italian Identities. The Farnesina CollectionA journey through the country's art from the post-World War II era to the present day. The program will also include Etruscans. Form and Matter; Stadiums. Architecture and myth; CONNECT-IT. Visions to unite the world; Italy on the move; Italian painting today. A new scene; CULTURE CUBE. The world speaks to us like a great book; Manuzio: The Book Revolution, and Dearest PinocchioThese proposals will be complemented by artistic interventions from Marco Mazzei and Nico Lopez Bruchi.

The FIL Forum will bring together jazz, soul, popular music, electronic music, and new urban expressions. The lineup will feature the Paolo Fresu Devil Quartet, el Radici Jazz Trio by Ada MontellanicoMario Biondi, Ambrogio Sparagna with the Orchestra Popolare Italiana, The Girl and Camilla Pisani.

The film series will showcase the diversity of Italian audiovisual production through documentaries, animation, auteur cinema, and new narrative forms. The selection will seek to project the country's imagery, language, and contemporary reality, as well as foster dialogue between literature, film, and the audiovisual sector. Gastronomic festivalA tradition of participation by the guest countries of honor will welcome the chef Marco Carbonicwho will present an Italian menu created especially for the occasion. The menu will offer a glimpse into the diversity of the country's cuisine and the knowledge, social practices, and customs passed down from generation to generation.

Alessandro Giuli, Italy's Minister of Culture, explained that “books have always been a tool for participation, capable of creating shared spaces between different worlds, ideas, cultures, and experiences. With this conviction, Italy, backed by its centuries-old heritage of essential books, takes to the stage at the largest book fair in the Spanish-speaking world. It does so with its unique variety of themes, languages, stimuli, and points of view: a richness fostered by publishers both large and small, capable of disseminating both the inexhaustible beauty of the classics and the relevance of contemporary works.”

“The presence at FIL 2026 represents the high point of the ICE Agency's promotional strategy for the Italian publishing industry, which in 2026 includes participation in seven international book fairs. This presence was preceded by a series of visits by Mexican professionals to Italian publishers, organized in conjunction with the Italian Publishers Association in June 2026. Internationalization is confirmed as a fundamental strategy for the sector's development. Sales of translation rights are the most important component of exports and grew by 8.2 percent; the increase was ten percent in the co-publishing segment. The main buyers are European markets, with 61 percent, followed by Asia, with 15 percent; Central and South America, with ten percent; the Middle East, with eight percent; North America, with three percent; Africa, with one percent; and the Pacific, with one percent. Mexico's share is ten percent. The Italian Pavilion at FIL, organized by the ICE Agency, will be structured “The exhibition revolves around Umberto Eco’s phrase, ‘The world speaks to us like a great book,’ interpreted through a single narrative journey across approximately 1,200 square meters of exhibition space,” commented Lorenzo Galanti, CEO of the ICE Agency.

The presentation concluded with a dialogue between the director of the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), Marisol Schulz Manaut, and two writers from the delegation that will travel to Guadalajara in November, Olga Campofreda and Viola Ardone. The conversation offered a first glimpse of an intense schedule of meetings marked by discovery, a defining characteristic of Italy's participation as Guest of Honor at the Guadalajara International Book Fair.

Attentively
“Think and Work”
“40 Years of the Guadalajara International Book Fair”
Guadalajara, Jalisco, July 17, 2026

Text: Guadalajara International Fair
Photo: Courtesy of FIL