Taobuk Festival SeeSicily: the 2023 programme launched at the Ministry of Culture in Rome

The 13th edition, which will take place in Taormina from 15 to 19 June, was launched to the press in the splendid setting of the Cruise Hall at the Ministry of Culture. This year’s concept is ‘Freedoms’: those recognised and above all those denied, in a space-time mapping whose coordinates will be traced by Nobel Prize winners, writers artists and Italian and international intellectuals.

Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano spoke at the press conference: ‘Taobuk Festival SeeSicily has the virtue of bringing together, on the very island where Greek culture was best expressed, what in the classical world was not distinct, but belonged to a common wisdom that had human thought as its protagonist: art, poetry, literature, geometry, mathematics and science stemmed from a single, great tradition, in which everything was held in a harmonious whole. Being able to relive this experience in contemporary terms in the splendid setting of Taormina is undoubtedly a great opportunity that I am sure the public will appreciate’.

The Minister’s words were echoed by those of the President of the Sicilian Region, Renato Schifani, who wrote in a note: ‘Taormina, a unique pearl in the world for its extraordinary beauty, becomes a true agora in which reading also meets the arts and science, thanks to Taobuk Festival See Sicily, which now ranks among the top Italian and, I would say, world literary festivals, an event of excellence that the regional government supports with conviction. This year’s event is once again an example of how our island is able to play a leading role on an international level thanks to the intellectual and organisational skills it expresses and the beauty of its monumental and landscape heritage. We stand in continuity with previous governments in the name of a prestigious event like Taobuk, with initiatives that bring us to the core of the Euro-Mediterranean debate. It is an important event and a great tourist attraction’.

This year the festival has a new name: the original logo is combined with that of the tourist promotion project conceived by the Sicilian Region to renew the island’s fascination for travellers. This strengthens the collaboration between SeeSicily and Taobuk for a festival with an international scope, which last year was honoured by the presence of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella.

“I greet with immense pleasure the 13th edition of the Festival,” added Elvira Amata, Regional Councillor for Tourism, Sport and Entertainment, “aware of the importance of this event, which includes the presence of world-famous artists, writers and intellectuals, skilfully combining the fine arts with the other arts and sciences, through knowledge. A privileged opportunity to turn the spotlight on our island, providing an international cultural and artistic stage, capable of attracting tourists, wealth and beauty’.

The event is conceived and directed by Antonella Ferrara: ‘Taobuk 2023 will explore the immense and intoxicating creative power, the power of aggregation, the dignity and opportunities that freedom and freedoms confer on free man, in guaranteeing him the inviolability of his body, his home, his privacy, and in ensuring him the autonomy to express himself and the independence of the people to which he belongs. One of the reasons that led to the choice of this concept is the urgency, dictated by the historical moment in which we live, to open a dialogue with several voices on the historical process of a fundamental conquest of civilisation, i.e. the overturning of freedom from the prerogative of certain classes to a status that is no longer privileged, but recognised to everyone from birth on the basis of the equality and brotherhood of men. A vision unheard of until the Enlightenment, from which it originated, and still in progress today: the condition of free men is therefore anything but taken for granted,’ adds Antonella Ferrara. “Minority is in fact the share of humanity that is guaranteed the enjoyment of fundamental rights. An aspiration that continues to be marked by the heroic sacrifices to pursue it. It is not the past, remote or near: it is today, as the tragic events of the Iranian women show’.

Taobuk proposes more than 200 e events with prestigious guests including writers, journalists, directors, artists and personalities from the world of entertainment and science.

Over five days, from 15 to 19 June, in the most significant venues in Taormina, guests from 30 countries around the world are called upon to explore the ‘meridians of freedom’ from multiple points of view and disciplines, giving rise to an observatory focused on the dynamics of the present and perspectives on the future.

A festival with a multidisciplinary approach that celebrates literature in relation to the other arts and sciences to give life to an agora of thought culminating in the presentation of the Taobuk Awards, which again this year see protagonists, who enriches the roll of honour of the 48 winners of past editions, among them Nobel Prize winners Svetlana Aleksievič, Mario Vargas Llosa, Orhan Pamuk, Olga Tokarczuk, Giorgio Parisi, and other writers such as Paul Auster, Michel Houellebecq, Emmanuel Carrère, David Grossman, Amos Oz, Abraham Yehoshua.