Working class Literature Festival 2024 (English version)

“We’re not here to entertain you.”

Organized by Edizioni Alegre and the GKN Factory Collective in collaboration with Arci Firenze and the Workers’ Mutual Aid Society Insorgiamo.

Directed by Alberto Prunetti

Starting on April 4, the Working Class Literature Festival will return to Campi Bisenzio for three days. This is the second edition of the festival, organized by Edizioni Alegre and the  GKN Factory Collective – together with Soms Insorgiamo – with the collaboration of Arci Firenze. The festival wouldn’t be possible withouth the support of 400 people through a crowdfunding campaign. 

They called us crazy as we started to build a literary festival in a struggling factory and not in a gentrified neighborhood of a big city. Taking everyone by surprise, the festival was a huge success involving thousands of engaged people for three days. People talked about it in Italy and abroad. This annoyed QF, the current ownership of  of the former GKN plant, which went so far as to threaten all the participants with suitability.

This year, the threats came immediately. Someone is obviously afraid of this Festival. Perhaps workers are not supposed to talk about books and culture, according to the ruling and privileged class. But we see things differently. The Festival, together with all the socio-cultural activities of the Workers’ Collective, fits perfectly into the social plan for the relaunch of the factory. Talking about working-class literature is a problem only if your goal is to deprive the territory of work, dignity, and one’s sense of community.

Once again, the Festival will take place at Campi Bisenzio in homage to the historical traditions of this area. In homage to struggles such as the one lived by GKN and MondoConvenienza and to the solidarity resistance network against the climatic and social damage due to the flood that hit this industrial area a few months ago.

After all, we are not here to entertain you, as Mark Fisher wrote. We are here because we want those who were born in homes without books to get a chance to write their own story, with their own words. We are here to build a new working class cultural landscape and to become stronger in claiming our rights.

Program

THURSDAY APRIL 4 – Teatro Dante-Carlo Monni in Campi Bisenzio

8 p.m. Presentation of the book “Il capitale di Kepler 452. A book we haven’t read yet” with Lorenzo Donati (editor of the volume), Enrico Baraldi and Nicola Borghesi (authors of the show Il Capitale), Federica Petti (councilor for culture). Coordinated by Sandra Gesualdi (Director of the Teatrodante)

9 p.m.: Theatrical performance Il Capitale. A book we haven’t read yet about Kepler 452. 

FRIDAY APRIL 5 – PRESIDIUM OF THE GKN FACTORY COLLECTIVE OF WORKERS, CAMPI BISENZIO

17.30. We are not here to entertain you – Presentation of the Festival program

Giulio Calella (Alegre Editions)

Alberto Prunetti (Festival Director, author of Down and Out in England and Italy)

Francesca Di Marco (Soms Insorgiamo)

GKN Factory Collective

18.30 Working class geographies #1 – The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

Claudia Durastanti (Author of Stranger I Know)

Valeria Parrella (Writer)

Nicklas Freisleben Lund (Working Class Literature Scholar, University of Southern Denmark)

8.00 p.m. dinner

21.00 Working class languages #1 – Can the subordinates speak?

Brigitte Vasallo (Author of Inclusive Language and Class Exclusion)

Sara Farris (Sociologist, Goldsmiths University of London)

Eugenia Prado Bassi (Author of (D)instructions for use for a sewing machine)

Giusi Palomba (Writer and translator)

10.30 p.m. Other repairs

History and struggles of the Officine Grandi Riparazioni of Bologna. Theatrical performance with Donatella Allegro and Stefano D’Arcangelo (With the support of Afeva ER)

SATURDAY APRIL 6

10.30 Working class languages #2 – Italian Workers’ Poetry in the Seventies

Ferruccio Brugnaro (Poet-worker from the Petrochemical of Porto Marghera)

Sandro Sardella (Poet worker, editor of the magazine Abiti lavoro)

Giovanni Garancini (Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Abiti lavoro)

Moderator/Chair: Emily Zendri (Alegre Editions)

12.00 Working class geographies #2 – Swedish working class literature

Magnus Nilsson (Scholar of Swedish Working Class Literature, Malmö University)

Henrik Johansson (Baker-writer from the Föreningen Arbetarskrivare, Society of the working class writers)

Moderator/Chair: Alberto Prunetti (Festival Director)

13.30 Lunch

15.00 Geographies working class #3 – The working class in Romance language (France, Spain, Italy)

Annalisa Romani (Translator of Françoise Ega, Édouard Louis and Didier Eribon)

Layla Martinez (Writer, author of The Woodworm)

Stefano Valenti (Author of The Panic Factory)

Coordinated by Alberto Prunetti (Director of the Festival)

16.30 Working class geography #4 – British working class literature. Introducing How I Killed Margaret Thatcher

Anthony Cartwright (Author)

Wu Ming 4 (Writer)

Claudia Durastanti (Writer)

18.00 Round table on publishing, working class and class struggle

Massimo Carlotto (Writer)

Luca Dall’Agnol (Trade Unionist, Typography, Grafica Veneta)

Silvia Gola (RedActa, trade union of those who work with books)

Francesca Coin (Sociologist)

Coordinator: Simona Baldanzi (Writer)

20.00 Dinner

21.30 Iron

Reading by the GKN workers based on The First Thing Was the Smell of Iron by Maria Luce Possentini and The Land of Iron by Pasquale Pinto. Followinf: ILVA FUT. CLUB, Piece.

SUNDAY APRIL 7

10.30 Working class languages #3 – Chinese workers’ poetry

Giusi Tamburello (Scholar of Chinese Language and Literature, University of Palermo)

Federico Picerni (Scholar of Chinese Literature, University of Bologna)

Coordinator: Pietro Cardelli (Arci Firenze)

12.00 Working class geographies #5 – Proletarian literature in the United States in the 1930s

Andrea Olivieri (Translator and editor of Dynamite! by Louis Adamic)

Alessandro Portelli (Scholar of Anglo-American Literature, Sapienza University of Rome)

Moderator /Chair: Ornella De Zordo (Scholar of English Literature, University of Florence)

13.30 Lunch

14.30 Working class languages #4 – Class in graphic novels

Sonia Maria Luce Possentini (Author of The First Thing Was the Smell of Iron)

Emiliano Pagani (Former metalworker, author as screenwriter of Don Zauker and Enemies of the People)

Moderator/Chair: Simona Baldanzi (Writer)

16.00 Geographies working class #6 – The dream factory of Campi Bisenzio

Fiamma Blacks reads some from The Dream Factory

Valentina Baronti (Author)

Alberto Prunetti (Festival Director)

Francesca Coin (Sociologist)

Salvatore Cannavò (Alegre Editions)

Cristina Trinci (Librarian, Organizer of the Bread and Roses Award)

Giulio Calella (Alegre Editions)

GKN Factory Collective