Franceschini: "we want to give the country a law on books and reading"

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism is preparing a law on books and reading. This was announced this morning by the Minister of Cultural Heritage, Dario Franceschini, in the video message for the opening of Io leggo perché, the reading invitation event promoted by the Italian Publishers Association together with the Center for Books and Reading.

“We intend to support a fundamental sector, including through the start of a table that began its work yesterday to give our country a law that, like the law for cinema, helps the entire book chain: authors, publishers, distributors, bookstores, libraries,” Franceschini said. “An important commitment, which must be supported by a strong cohesion of the book world: no longer competing with each other, but working as a single team that seeks to increase the number of readers and encourage reading.”

“Even in the most dramatic situations,” Franceschini recalled, “there always remains some positive trace. In this sense, the experience of lockdown, the restriction of our movements, the isolation made many people discover things that in their hectic, accelerated, fast-paced lives they had forgotten: spaces of silence, of solitude, of isolation in their homes. And not surprisingly, many people have rediscovered the pleasure of reading. This will remain because those who take up the pleasure of reading, it continues throughout their lives. I think we need to invest in this, just as we need to invest in the fact that many policy makers who are traditionally distant from culture have understood the importance in our societies, and particularly in Italy, of investing in culture. They have understood how sad and ugly our cities are with closed cinemas and theaters, without concerts, without the cultural life that makes them rich and alive. This too will remain, in the strategic choices of investment in culture.”

“We have worked hard,” Franceschini concluded, “to support all cultural enterprises to cross the desert of the Covid emergency. We have particularly helped reading, with support for bookstores, which will remain open in the red zones like other essential services, and support for small publishing houses. Support that now continues with work on the book law.”

Franceschini: "we want to give the country a law on books and reading"

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