Books

Our Mondadori publishing house has launched Nota del traduttore, a five-part mini-series on YouTube about the job of the translator, in the words of some of Italy’s top professionals.

Translation is a fascinating and extremely important editorial profession because it offers readers access in their own language to the works of foreign writers, helping them acquire a natural understanding and appreciation of the spirit of the text. Who better than the translator, who has “gone inside” the book and investigated its hidden depths, can guide readers through the universe that lies within the pages of a novel?

The format was created for the specific purpose of answering the questions to which even people who work in the world of books are unable to respond satisfactorily: do you read the text first and then start translating or translate it a bit at a time? What do you do when the author uses slang? How has translation changed over the years?

Nota del traduttore is a three-part journey in three different settings. The first is a desk, where the translators talk about the way they work and the objects they have at hand. The second setting is a red armchair where they reply to questions with a series of optometric charts representing the transition from a symbol to a meaning, from one cultural universe to another. In the third and final setting, the translators address an imaginary audience made up of photos of writers and book covers, reading a personal “note”, a few words describing the ultimate meaning of the work they do.

The five episodes, filmed at the Panatronics Studio in Milan, feature translators Marco Rossari, Monica Pavani, Edoardo Rialti, Gianni Pannofino, Luca Fusari and Sara Prencipe. The project was developed from an idea by Edoardo Brugnatelli, with the collaboration of Jacopo Milesi, Chiara Ottolini, Nadia Focile and Francesca Gariazzo, together with Claudio Sforza, Alessandro Freno, Ivan Tonucci, Cristina Sinelli, Federico Terenzio and Mauro Forester.

Our publishing houses are supply systems incorporating highly specific professional skills that transform the most impalpable things – what Shakespeare would call “such stuff as dreams are made on” – into consumer goods. Giving translators a voice and visibility is a way to highlight the craftsmanship, the competences, people and passion that is editorial work.

From here we want to expand this type of communication, to bring readers closer to our books, answer their queries about jobs in publishing and give the human and professional skills operating in our Group the credit they deserve.

In 2021, everyone hospitalised at the Sant’Orsola will receive the gift of a book. A companion to help them get through difficult days and discover something new. This is the Fondazione Sant’Orsola project for 2021. An idea that stemmed from the voluntary work of the non-profit organisation and was developed together with Coop Alleanza 3.0 consultant Romano Montroni, chair of the scientific committee of the Centro per il Libro e la Lettura.

The initiative was made possible thanks to the generosity of three sponsors – BPER Banca, the Unipol Group and UniSalute – and the kindness of the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group, who agreed to print 24,000 volumes. Three books have been published: Jane Austen, Emma; Jack London, Martin Eden; Cesare Pavese, La casa in collina. Three classics, three books to read and re-read.

The project was also supported by the Centro per il libro e la lettura, an autonomous body of the Italian Ministry for Culture, and will be endorsed by author Gianrico Carofiglio, who has recognised the importance of the initiative, the first of its kind in Italy.

As soon as the health emergency has ended and the wards are re-opened, the volunteers of the Fondazione Sant’Orsola will present the books to the patients. Until then, distribution will be organised with the assistance of the clinic’s nursing staff, who will ask incoming patients to choose one of the three books when they are assigned a bed. The Fondazione Sant’Orsola website will host a virtual community of readers, where views on the three books and other reading material can be shared.

“Books are essential to a person’s development,” explains the president of Fondazione Sant’Orsola, Giacomo Faldella, “but also to their well-being: some patients bring a book with them, and they see it as a life jacket before making a crossing on a stormy sea; or, more simply perhaps, as a friend to keep them company. However, many patients aren’t in the habit of reading, or for some reason were unable to bring a book with them.”

“In Britain, bibliotherapy has long been a recognised activity,” says Romano Montroni. “The National Health Service has a department set up for the specific purpose of using reading to foster well-being. The relationship between a person’s health and art is also deeply rooted in our own culture; in the early Italian hospitals, like Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, the sick and pilgrims were accommodated and treated in rooms that over the centuries had been decorated by the city’s great painters and sculptors, so the patients were literally “immersed” in beauty. In other words, well-being was regarded in a broad sense, not simply in medical-physical terms.”

“The first thing that someone experiencing a period of difficulty or illness should perhaps try and do is look after themselves,” adds Enrico Selva Coddè, CEO of Einaudi and Mondadori Libri Trade. “It sounds easy, but sometimes it’s impossible. So a simple gesture can help, which is to open a book and absorb yourself in the voice speaking from its pages. A voice dedicated to us, as an indissoluble combination of flesh and imagination. Three classics, because they are like old friends we enjoy seeing again, classics that, as Italo Calvino said, are books people usually say they are ‘re-reading’, not that they are ‘reading’.” Whether it is the wit and irony of Jane Austen, the courage and tenacity of Jack London, the realism and melancholy of Cesare Pavese, these books will certainly help their readers feel less alone.”

Exactly one year ago, Fondazione Sant’Orsola brought together around twenty volunteers – former booksellers, retired teachers, people who love reading – to set up the Libri in corsia project. In just a few weeks, the 1,745 books in the wards had been mapped to create an online catalogue patients could use to request a book located in another ward; the volunteers would then fetch it for them. The pandemic meant that, for reasons of safety, books could no longer be swapped in the hospital. But the Fondazione Sant’Orsola volunteers did not give up: they decided that if books could not be borrowed, they could always be offered as a gift.

This led to the idea being launched today, thanks to the generosity of the sponsors and the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group. An idea that the Fondazione Sant’Orsola volunteers have decided to take a step further with a new project Provo a dirlo con un libro. The Sant’Orsola website today has a catalogue of more than 250 books reviewed by the volunteers. Patients can ask for one of the books, or for one of the titles that have not yet been reviewed, and the volunteers will get it to them within 24 hours. Meanwhile, everyone can post comments and reviews on the catalogue, to build up the online community of readers.
22 June 2021

Arnoldo Mondadori often entertained writers and publishers in his family home in Meina, and would ask them to write a mot juste or sign their name on the wall above the fireplace.

Fondazione Mondadori is marking the fiftieth anniversary of his death with a digital exhibition that takes those signatures as a starting point to look back at Arnoldo’s relations with some of the leading figures from the 20th-century world of literature and publishing, from Eugenio Montale to Alba de Céspedes, Mario Soldati to Lavinia Mazzucchetti as well as Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Mann and Walt Disney. Interviews, archive documents and videoclips portray a home that was a place to work, to welcome friends and family, as well as a setting for encounters that hold a place in the history of Italian culture and publishing in the 20th century.

The exhibition is organised in three sections. The first, Villa Mondadori in Meina, looks at the history of the lakeside house, from its purchase in the 1920s as a summer residence open to friends and guests, to its use as a refuge and branch of the publishing house during the Second World War.

The second and third sections of the exhibition, Authors and The Publishing World, examine Arnoldo Mondadori’s relationships with some of the authors of the signatures above the fireplace: Enzo Biagi, Valentino Bompiani, Dino Buzzati, Piero Chiara, Alba de Céspedes, Lavinia Mazzucchetti, Domenico Porzio, Vasco Pratolini, Colette Rosselli, Renzo Segala, Mario Soldati.

The exhibition is online on the Fondazione Mondadori website from Friday 4 June.

50 years since the death of Arnoldo Mondadori: program

Il cam(m)ino dell’editore. Storie di Arnoldo Mondadori a Meina opens a program of initiatives dedicated to the publisher on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his death, on 8 June 2021, organised in collaboration with other entities

They include:

1. A commemorative postage stamp printed by Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato and issued by the Italian Post Office on Tuesday 8 June.
2. Two books examining the figure of Arnoldo Mondadori, published by Fondazione Mondadori for the «Biblioteca» series. The first is entitled Lettere all’editore. Aleramo, de Céspedes e Manzini autrici Mondadori, edited by Sabina Ciminari. The second, Dear Mr. Mondadori. I romanzi americani nel catalogo Mondadori 1930-1960, is edited by Cinzia Scarpino and traces the history of the American novels in the Mondadori catalogue between the 1930s and the end of the 1960s.
3. A reprint of the biography Arnoldo Mondadori by Enrico Decleva for the Mondadori series «Oscar Storia»: in his examination of the life of the distinguished publisher and entrepreneur, for which he was awarded the Acqui-Storia prize, Decleva describes a fundamental period in arts and culture, the creation of a mass market for books and journals in a century of important social change. The book will be available from 8 June.
4. A celebratory book, produced as a collaboration between the Mondadori publishing house and Fondazione Mondadori. The book will use a collection of dedications by the authors to Arnoldo Mondadori as the springboard to recount key moments and personalities in the history of the publishing house. The selection will be made by Alberto Cadioli, who will edit the book and write the introduction. The publication date will coincide with the conference to be held in the autumn.
5. A conference on themes and trends in contemporary publishing, starting from the figure and entrepreneurial story of Arnoldo Mondadori. The conference, organised in collaboration with Mondadori, will be held on 7 October, the moderator will be Mario Calabresi.
6. A docu-drama produced by Anele di Gloria Giorgianni and directed by Francesco Micciché, alternating archive material and personal accounts on the life of Arnoldo Mondadori.
7. The creation by the Mondadori publishing house of a scholarship for the next edition of the Master in publishing at Milan University, in collaboration with AIE and Fondazione Arnoldo e Alberto Mondadori. The scholarship will be dedicated to the memory of publisher Stefano Magagnoli, who died recently and was for many years one of the leading names in Italian book publishing.

Everyone should read. Everyone can read.

Mondadori Libri per Ragazzi presents its first collection of high-interest books to help its readers develop their skills. A graphics project intended not only for readers with learning difficulties, but for everyone who finds reading challenging. A fun way to help children discover the pleasure of reading and make reading child’s play!

• What exactly is a high-interest book? The features of the high-interest graphics project are:
  use of the leggimi font developed in 2006 by Sinnos in collaboration with neuropsychiatrists, speech therapists and teachers; designed to be easier to read and intended specifically for people with reading difficulties;
• the line spacing and spaces between letters are wider than usual;
• the text is always aligned on the left and there are no word divisions;
• spacing to indicate paragraph divisions or narrative sequences, in order to facilitate understanding and give readers achievable objectives.

20 May 2021
The first four books in the collection

Il diritto di sognare by Sarah Pellizzari Rabolini:
Bea feels she is always second-best, but when she hears the story of Claudette Colvin who, before Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat to a white woman but has been largely forgotten, she learns to come to terms with grading. Sarah Pellizzari Rabolini is an Italian teacher and journalist. She has written novels, poetry and short stories and received a number of awards.

Un salto tra le stelle by Daria Bertoni:
Stella is looking forward to starting her artistic gymnastics training again and there’s a wonderful piece of news: she will be a member of the Gazzelle competition team! Daria Bertoni has worked as bookseller at the Libreria dei Ragazzi in Milan for many years. With Mondadori she has published Stelle in equilibrio and Libera. Un’amica tra le onde.

Scuola di mostri by Sabrina Guidoreni:
It’s the first day at school and Giò is worried. His father says starting something new is always a great adventure, but he’s not so sure. Sabrina Guidoreni was born and lives in Bologna. She studied at Bottega Finzioni, and is a nursery-school teacher and indefatigable reader.

Il bambino fiocco di neve by Viviana Mazza:
The moving true story of Wang Fuman, the little boy who was determined to go to school at any cost. Viviana Mazza is a journalist on the foreign desk of “Corriere della Sera”. She was one of the first people in Italy to tell young people about Malala Yousafzai in her book La storia di Malala.

Sperling & Kupfer today launches the podcast Senza perdere il filo. Narratori di mondi possibili on the main audio platforms. This is the first podcast produced by a publishing house with original content created ad hoc by authors with the Mondadori Group’s publishing houses.

The theme of the podcast is sustainability. Developed from an idea by Linda Poncetta, a fiction editor at Sperling & Kupfer, and Grazia Rusticali, chief fiction editor at Sperling & Kupfer and Piemme, the project is part of the eleventh edition of the international Nudge Global Impact Challenge.

People who tell stories create new worlds, or show us the world in which we live in a different light, suggesting ways it could be improved. With their stories, the protagonists of this podcast stimulate reflection on a new beginning, an opportunity to imagine a different future after Covid. Because there is an answer to the change we are looking for: a more sustainable world, a future where we respect ourselves, other people and the environment around us.

From high-quality teaching to gender equality, from the fight against climate change to the value of diversity:  Senza perdere il filo is a podcast that examines the past, recounts the present and imagines the future, through contributions from 7 authors, who talk about every aspect of sustainability.

Each episode is inspired by one of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The authors who took part are Sara Rattaro (Le parole cambiano il mondo; storytelling and creative writing), Claudio Pelizzeni (Consigli per viaggiare sostenibile), Federica Gasbarro (Le parole insegnano, gli esempi trascinano; climate change), Guido Marangoni (Uguali e diversi; diversity and inclusion), Francesca Vecchioni (È l’uomo misura di tutte le cose?; gender equality), Andrea Maggi (Lezioni per un futuro sostenibile; high-quality teaching) and Annalisa Monfreda (Quell’intreccio prezioso di vita e lavoro; smart working and the future of work).
The podcast is available free on: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Amazon Music. The first three episodes are currently available; the next two will be published on 17 May and the last two on 24 May. The Senza perdere il filo series is produced by Sperling & Kupfer with the editorial supervision of Linda Poncetta. Sound design and realisation is by Luca Carano.
https://www.spreaker.com/show/senza-perdere-il-filo
The project stems from the Mondadori Group’s participation in the Nudge Global Impact Challenge, an eight-month personal development program concentrating on leadership and sustainability, for young professionals from all over the world. During the program the ninety participants have the chance to develop an idea with a positive impact for a more sustainable world.

For more than 110 years, the mission of the Mondadori Group has been to foster the circulation of culture and ideas, through a high-profile leisure offer for the widest possible public. A leading player on the book market and Italy’s primary multimedia publisher, Mondadori has embraced a social responsibility path that, through all its channels, promotes quality content highlighting sustainability, plurality of thought, inclusion and diversity, with an approach geared to innovation.

Mondadori’s commitment takes the form of activities to support the communities where the group operates: promotion of reading, education, training and social and healthcare assistance. The group has also implemented a range of initiatives to reduce the environmental footprint of its offices and bookstores, which have led to a significant reduction in carbon emissions and increased use of certified paper for the production of books and magazines.

The Mondadori Group has redesigned its Trade Books Area under the leadership of the chief executive of Mondadori Libri S.p.A. Enrico Selva Coddè, with the aim of pursuing growth and development opportunities for its publishing houses.

“We have defined a new organisational model that will enable us to respond more effectively to the central challenges in trade publishing, a sector in increasingly rapid evolution, also at the international level,” declared Enrico Selva Coddè. “A necessary change to look to the future of the country’s leading cultural industry with the innovative approach that has always characterised our publishing houses,” Selva Coddè concluded.

Consequently, two new crossover departments have been created that will report directly to Enrico Selva Coddè.

The first, the department of General Operations, will be headed up by Filippo Guglielmone, with the aim of orienting the business at the highest possible level of cost efficiency and service possible; operations and sales will be integrated in a single process to drive value generation and make it possible to optimise time-to-market, increase customer satisfaction and facilitate the growth of the publishing houses.

The second, the department for Strategic Marketing, Rights and Acquisitions, to be led by Lorenzo Garavaldi, aims to reinforce the company’s role in the publishing market through analysis and the definition of market strategy, the coordination of acquisition activities and the identification of development priorities.

Reporting to Enrico Selva Coddè, the publishing houses will also absorb product marketing activities giving them all control over communication, in line with a scenario in which the enhancement of authors’ work is part of a single publishing effort that goes from the title to readers’ comments.

The publishing houses are led by Francesco Anzelmo, General Manager of Mondadori; Ernesto Franco, General Manager and Editorial Director of Einaudi; Massimo Turchetta, General Manager of Rizzoli Trade and Publishing & Rights Development; Stefano Peccatori, General Manager of Sperling & Kupfer, Piemme and Mondadori Electa, and Lorenzo Garavaldi, General Manager of BU Ragazzi.

Electa is pleased to present #puntoeacapo, a collection of short digital stories –for the moment “filmed” from home – by writers, curators, creatives, editors and those working with the publisher, all sharing their different perspectives and activities. They will talk about books, exhibitions and the languages of art, from publishing to architecture, passing via museum bookshops.

The #puntoeacapo social feature of stories and accounts continuesthe Art and illustrated publishing experience through the faces and voices of curators, museum directors, archaeologists, art critics, artists, architects and designers. Born during the “lockdown” weeks, #puntoeacapo starts with Electa pondering its journey as a publisher and its role flanking museums. As we mark 75 years in publishing, we have started thinking about the Electa of today and of the future with many questions and some constants (old and new).

The first series of videos responds to a desire to revisit the#patrimonioitalia and rethink our cultural identity and past by conducting a Grand Tour through books, exhibitions, memories and emotions as we look to the future.

As the end of a more complex school year than ever comes closer, teachers at all levels and in all schools, are facing another big challenge: how to assess and grade students at a distance. A key moment in the teaching-learning process. Always a complex activity, in the current situation it is particularly difficult.

In fact, in distance learning, the grading process takes on a different aspect compared with what happens in the classroom. The moments for learning assessment (for example, individual or group activities, digital presentations prepared by pupils with feedback from teachers, the level of participation in lessons) go hand in hand and often replace traditional grading methods (tests and oral exams). The new context has heightened the need for support for the more fragile students and requires inclusive teaching tools and strategies.

Valid support for teachers about to engage in this delicate process is available from Mondadori Education that provides specific content, materials and tools for the certification of skills and the assessment of levels of learning, also remotely: a variety of tests on a range of topics and subjects, maps useful for revision, digital services for each subject and all levels, from primary to first and second level secondary schools. All, even in this emergency period, freely downloadable from the publisher’s web site.

The support path that the publisher offers to teachers will continue in the coming weeks also with a programme dedicated to preparation for the final year exams, as it will be structured this year and, from September, with a practical project for recovery activities in preparation for the new school year.

Of special relevance, regarding assessments, in the HUB Test platform, that is both intuitive and easy to use e semplice and allows teachers to easily manage tests: on the one hand with the possibility of accessing a complete and varied database, and, on the other, to create new personalised tests that can be easily shared with the class.

And then there are activities that focus on teacher training via webinars, with free participation, organised by experts from the publishing house, with explanations and ideas on how to assess, as well as the techniques for assessing both synchronous and asynchronous activities.

On the basis of what has already been done since the beginning of March, as an immediate response to the emergency, to make freely available the entire range digital content for distance learning – over 40 gigabytes of content and more than 12,000 gigabytes of video, audio, customisable maps, playlists, and facilitated texts for inclusion –  the commitment of Mondadori Education continues with the proposal of a complete path to support teachers in the three crucial phases of their work: revision and testing, final year state exams and September recovery programmes.

“The emergency that we have faced, and continue to live with,” underlined Aaron Buttarelli, editorial director of Mondadori Education, “has all of a sudden obliged Italian schools to reconsider, in a very short period of time and often without adequate tools, the entire teaching-learning process. We have always been on the side of teachers and students in the pursuit of innovation and the digitalisation of schools, with a range of services for day-to-day teaching which has now taken on enormous relevance. Including the evolution of the textbook, which is no longer a static printed support but thanks to digital has become both live and dynamic, for more personalised learning, with language and formats able to inform and stimulate interest in learning.”

A commitment that is rewarded by the success among teachers and demonstrated by the data traffic metrics on the platform which has recorded a user base of some 1.5 million active users,  to which have been added, in the last two months,  more than 400,000 new registered users, with an increase of 30 times in the use of  Virtual Classes, more than 15 times for Tests and 6 times for the use of reading Apps and traffic on the site that has grown by 8 times on a daily basis.

The HUB Test offer, is part of the services offered by HUB Scuola, Italy’s most extensive database for digital teaching, and which features a number of other tools, including: the Virtual Class, an environment for the management of teaching activities and courses, exchanging comments, setting assignments and homework and monitoring progress; reading Apps to use digital books; HUB Campus for more detail on different subjects; and the HUB Scuola channel on YouTube with over 1,700 videos, organised in playlists.

Even today 120 million children around the world do not receive a basic education, and more than half of them are girls. Without the chance to study it is impossible to imagine a future, without adequate quality education there are no opportunities to build a better and more secure life.

The right to an education is even more at risk in countries like Ethiopia, where almost 30 million people live below the poverty line and 30.4% of children under the age of 5 suffer from malnutrition. Too many boys and girls (70%) are obliged to leave education after primary school in order to help their families by working in the fields and because of a lack of the right kind of support.

This is why, for Christmas, ActionAid together with Mondadori, Einaudi, Rizzoli, Piemme, Sperling&Kupfer, Mondadori Electa and Fabbri Editori have come together to face an important challenge: to guarantee the right to education for 1,800 boys and girls in the Raya Azebo of Ethiopia, one of the places in the world where the provision of primary education is most urgent, and an area that is frequently without access to drinking water and adequate sanitation.

“Going to school in Ethiopia and being able to complete studies with quality education is a right that is denied to too many children especially girls. To able to work alongside a partner like Mondadori is to receive the kind of fundamental support that will make it possible to realise the dreams of 1,800 children who have neither classrooms, nor books or materials. Thanks to the contribution of the publishing houses of the Group we will be able to build two new schools, provide electricity, drinking water and sanitation, support teacher training and build awareness in the local community of the importance of educating girls, in one of the poorest regions of the country,” declared Marco De Ponte, Secretary General of ActionAid.

The importance of an education worthy of the name – that is equal, inclusive and accessible to everyone – is an absolute priority for the Mondadori Group: indeed, it is part of a profound sense among the people who work in the company that it is a natural and fundamental element of our traditions and history as a company” declared Enrico Selva Coddè, Chief Executive of the Trade Area of Mondadori Books. “This initiative allows our publishing houses to go further and engage in a concrete and inclusive solidarity project that will benefit one of the areas of the world in which the need is most urgent. Being able to work alongside a partner like ActionAid is a guarantee for us of the seriousness of our joint commitment” concluded Enrico Selva Coddè.

The project

Most of the schools in the Raya Azebo district have wooden frames and mud walls. And due to the lack of separate toilet facilities for boys and girls, it is impossible for girls to go to school during their menstrual cycle. Such frequent absence from lessons consequently leads to poor results and even abandoning school altogether.

With the “Insieme per l’istruzione” (Together for Education) project, ActionAid and the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group will create a safe school environment for 1,800 children, half of them girls, in the primary schools of the Barie Woyane and Hawulti communities. During 2020 two school buildings, each with four classrooms, a library and separate toilet facilities for girls, will be completed. Also teaching materials and classroom furniture will be provided, along with support for girls and initiatives to improve school governance, with the increased involvement of the local communities.

The progress of the project in Ethiopia can be followed on the web site: insiemeperlistruzione.it.

With this initiative, ActionAid and the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group are committed to the shared support of the fourth of the Sustainable Objectives set by the United Nations for 2030.

ActionAid for schools

Over the last year we have ensured and improved access to free, safe and quality education for boys and girls in around 5,000 schools in 25 countries. We have also involved over 400,000 parents, teachers and students in activities aimed at preventing and combatting the early abandonment of school.

The Mondadori Group for education

We are a publishing house with over 100 years of history. Thanks to our strong links with authors and readers we are acutely aware of our responsibilities, also to civil society. There is no doubt that the right to quality education and information is an essential prerequisite for the development and growth of a country. Consequently, the active promotion, in Italy and around the world, of a culture that is accessible to all, is a central part of our mission and one of the principles of the Group’s sustainability policy.

What ActionAid does

ActionAid is an independent international organisation operating in Italy and in 44 other countries. It collaborates with more than 10,000 partners, alliances, NGOs and social movements to combat poverty and social injustice. For over 40 years ActionAid has been working alongside the poorest and most marginalised people and communities, supporting them in the knowledge that it is only through collective efforts in support of solidarity and justice that real social change can be generated. A fair and equal world for all: this is the vision that inspires ActionAid and provides its strength. In order to transform this vision of the world into concrete reality, ActionAid has adopted a specific mission for the next 10 years: to work for the promotion and adoption of democratic participation and to involve people and communities in the protection of their rights, and to collaborate, at a local, national and international level, for the realisation of change and the spread of social equality, improving the quality of democracy and consequently supporting those who live in situations of poverty and marginalisation.