The Italian writer Alessandro Baricco, founder of Scuola Holden in Turin, once wrote in his monologue Novecento (later adapted into the film The Legend of 1900): “You’re never really done for, as long as you’ve got a good story and someone to tell it to.” This - I think - is what my day with CELA was about. And maybe something more. But we’ll get to that. First, let’s begin where it began.

Friday morning, May 16th, 2025. Turin. Salone Internazionale del Libro.

For those who’ve never been: Salone is Italy’s largest literary fair. Not just by numbers - though those are impressive (231,000 visitors this year alone) - but by cultural weight. It’s loud, intellectual, disorienting, beautiful. A mix of ministers, students, celebrities, small publishers, giants, TikTokers, philosophers, teenagers, translators. It happens every May inside Lingotto, a repurposed Fiat factory. CELA was there - this year, like every edition - not just as guests, but as participants. More precisely: at the Rights Centre. The Rights Centre is a separate section inside the fair, a quiet, scheduled space where meetings are booked in advance. It’s where books are sold, translated, exported. Here, people don’t browse: they pitch. This is where the work happens behind the scenes, out of sight. It’s 9.30 a.m. Outside, it feels like New Year’s Eve - only it’s 25 degrees, and full daylight. Inside CELA participants are sitting in a row, in a conference room. They were seated on blue chairs. I watched them for a while. Some were fiddling with their lanyards. Others touched the seats beside them.

Kim van Kaam stood in front of the room. A second later, she tested the mic. It was time.

"We’re a European cooperation project, co-funded by Creative Europe. We support 66 emerging writers and 99 emerging translators from 14 organisations across 11 countries. We focus on small literary markets in Europe. We build professional skills for internationalization. And we try to reach international audiences, to better understand what European literature actually means. Language studies are being cut everywhere in Europe. It’s harder and harder to maintain a professional practice as a translator. Selling translations is not our main goal - we can’t do that. What we do is promote and support the ability to make it happen."

And then:

"Please. Take these voices seriously. They are our future."

Then she introduced Antonio De Sortis, translator from Dutch into Italian and participant in the first edition of the project. He spoke like someone who really knows how much a single conversation can change a career.  

"When I got contacted by CELA, I had just started as a translator. So, I didn’t have a proper network, especially in the Netherlands, where I used to live back in the day. But I was not that familiar with the book market. I met a lot of people via CELA - a lot of writers, also publishers. And that’s how I started a little bit to be, I would say, to understand better how it works to get into a literary network. That’s how I decided to be very consistent in proposing this book - Joost Oomen’s book - to Italian publishers. And to get it published, even if not immediately, because it took some years. But it gave me the enthusiasm and also the self-consciousness to do so."

After that, breakfast. Because we’re in Italy, and even at 10 a.m. on a working Friday - right before your most important meeting of the year - you’ll find a large breakfast waiting for you. There it is. Warm croissants and espresso macchiato.  Then, slowly, the buzz starts. The Rights Centre comes alive. Tables fill up. Meetings start.

I caught up with three translators, just after their pitches.

Barbara Pavetto had just come out of a meeting when I found her.

"I’m a translator from Romanian into Italian, and I’ve just finished talking to a literary agent. We are promoting the books we hope to translate, and this literary agent contacted me because she wants to explore Eastern Europe. So yeah, that’s what we did. We talked about the books I really want to translate, and I pitched them. And how did it go? It went well, I think. Yes, it went well, pretty well!"

She laughs.
Martino Gandi, translator from Spanish into Italian, came next.

"It was a beautiful day, because I think it was amazing to try and make people love the story we loved, the one we translated. One book I recommend - and I hope someone brings to Italy - is Los Miralles by Kike Carta. I think it’s a very good story, very well written, so I really hope it gets translated. I’m working for that."

Paola Pappalardo, translator from Polish into Italian, was calm and smiling:

"I talked with some editors. It was my first time - I never did that before - so I was kind of excited, and happy with how it went. I pitched Żywopłoty by Maria Karpińska. It’s a book about a man who starts out as a kid, then grows up, and in every stage of life has to deal with some problems, ideas, thoughts - the kind we all have while growing up. When we’re kids, maybe we just want to be friends with someone. When we’re older, maybe we worry about work. It’s just about growing up. 
I really like this book, and I hope it will get translated into Italian very soon."

One by one, they stepped into unfamiliar rooms, opened folders, and told stories. Not just stories written by someone else - but stories they believed in. So maybe Baricco was right: you’re never really done for, as long as you’ve got a good story and someone to tell it to.

But stories don’t float on their own. They also need a place to land. A space.
I believe that’s what this day with CELA was really about.
To tell a story, and to find a space. In a network - waiting for you, like a warm croissant on a working Friday morning in Italy.