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Gavoi (NU), 11 June 2026 – From 2 to 5 July 2026 Gavoi once again becomes L’Isola delle Storie (The Island of Stories): a place where books, ideas, music and community come together in the heart of Barbagia. The 20th edition of Sardinia’s Literary Festival marks an important milestone for an event that, over twenty years, has built a deep relationship with its audience, with authors and with the village that hosts it.

This year too the programme unfolds along its familiar thematic strands, designed to guide the audience through a daily journey of listening, discovery and exchange. Italian and international literature, journalism, readings, performances, events for younger generations, exhibitions and tributes shape an edition that looks back at the festival’s history while engaging with the questions of the present.

The 20th edition opens on Thursday 2 July, in the Giardino Comunale, with the official inauguration at 9:30 pm followed, at 10:00 pm, by Carapace, the musical show by Roy Paci: a journey through music, memory and autobiographical storytelling in which the Sicilian musician appears in a new guise as crooner and storyteller, accompanied by his trumpet and an ensemble of musicians.

From Friday to Sunday, the festival days begin at 10:30 am at S’Antana ‘e Susu with Dal Balcone – Universi al femminile, a strand devoted to women’s voices and writing. The programme features leading authors of contemporary fiction in a path that, over the three days, moves through memory, identity, relationships and perspectives on the present. Among this edition’s guests: Maria Attanasio, poet and writer, shortlisted for the 2026 Strega Prize with La Rosa Inversa, opens the festival in conversation with Elvira Mujčić (Friday 3 July); Maura Gancitano talks with the writer Nadeesha Uyangoda, also a candidate for the 2026 Strega Prize and winner of the 2026 Campiello Opera Prima award with Acqua sporca (Saturday 4 July); and Sarah Savioli with the Bosnian writer and translator Elvira Mujčić and her latest book La Stagione che non c’era (Sunday 5 July).

At midday, in Piazza Sant’Antiocru, Mezzogiorno di Fuoco returns, the festival’s space dedicated to the most pressing issues of international affairs. On Friday 3 July Eugenio Cau, journalist at Il Post and author of the podcast Globo, talks with the writer Pegah Moshir Pour, an Italian of Iranian origin and an activist for human and digital rights, and with Farian Sabahi, journalist and historian with a deep knowledge of Iran and the Middle East. The meeting, titled Notte sopra l’Iran, explores the Iranian situation, starting from the theme of rights, individual freedoms and the voices of civil society. On Saturday 4 July it is the turn of Raccontare la guerra, i fatti e la forza delle storie, with Marta Serafini, a Corriere della Sera correspondent who has closely followed the war in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian writer Yaryna Grusha, reflecting on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and on the way war is told, understood and lived through people’s lives. On Sunday 5 July the strand continues with Genesi di una svolta, a new meeting on the balances of the present and on geopolitical transformations, with Valentina Petrini in dialogue with La7 investigative journalist Elena Testi, whose latest book Genesi reconstructs the rise of the ultra-nationalist and messianic far right to government in Israel.

In the early afternoon, at 4:00 pm, the Giardino Comunale di Binzadonnia hosts the Reading strand. On Friday 3 July Saba Anglana brings La signora Meraviglia to Gavoi, an event weaving together voice, memory, identity and roots. On Saturday 4 July the protagonist is Fabio Genovesi with the autobiographical novel Mie magnifiche maestre and his ironic, conversational writing, able to move through everyday life, relationships and fragilities. On Sunday 5 July Francesco Pacifico takes the stage with La voce del padrone, a story observing the languages, relationships and cultural transformations of contemporary society.

At 5:10 pm, in Piazza Sant’Antiocru, Esercizi di Meraviglia returns, the strand born from the collaboration with Tlon – Maura Gancitano and Andrea Colamedici and conceived to rediscover wonder as a way of looking at and questioning reality. On Friday 3 July Maura Gancitano and Andrea Colamedici meet Matteo Saudino, philosopher, teacher and creator of BarbaSophia, a philosophy outreach project followed by a vast online community, for Meraviglia della Fragilità, Fragilità della Meraviglia. On Saturday 4 July Andrea Colamedici talks with Serena Mazzini, an expert and critic of the mass media, in the meeting L’Industria della Solitudine, devoted to the relationship between digital life, relationships and society. On Sunday 5 July Maura Gancitano meets investigative journalist Valentina Petrini for Libertà e Disobbedienza come vie per la Meraviglia, a dialogue on rights, inequalities, care and freedom of choice.

At 6:10 pm, at Mesu Bidda, the Altre prospettive strand offers an interwoven look at new voices in Italian and European fiction, in meetings led by Sarah Savioli. On Friday 3 July the conversation is with the Sardinian writers Graziella Monni and Bibbiana Cau, authors respectively of La ragazza della solitudine and La levatrice. On Saturday 4 July, in collaboration with the Slovak Institute, Michal Hvorecký brings to the festival a perspective on contemporary European fiction, starting from his book Tahiti. On Sunday 5 July the strand continues with Mattia Insolia and La vita giovane and Gabriella Dal Lago with Giorni futuri, in a discussion on new writing and on the ways the novel tells of youth, relationships and the present.

At 7:30 pm, in Piazza Sant’Antiocru, Storie di altri luoghi returns, the strand dedicated to meetings with international authors, this year led by Elisabetta Bucciarelli. It begins on Friday 3 July with Joanna Bator, one of the most acclaimed Polish writers of contemporary European fiction, in an event held in collaboration with the Polish Institute in Rome. On Saturday 4 July it is the turn of Eshkol Nevo, among the best-known and best-loved Israeli writers in Italy, author of novels that tell of family relationships, friendship, identity and the tensions of contemporary society, in a meeting held in collaboration with Éntula – Festival Letterario Diffuso. On Sunday 5 July, at 7:00 pm, the strand concludes with Widad Tamimi, journalist and writer born into a family of refugees, Jewish on her mother’s side and Palestinian on her father’s. Starting from her latest book Dal fiume al mare, an intense memoir about what it means to inhabit divided identities, the dialogue moves through memory and the fractures of the present.

On Friday 3 July, at 8:30 pm, in the Salone parrocchiale, the festival pays tribute to Marjane Satrapi, the recently departed Franco-Iranian author, illustrator and director, with a screening of Persepolis in its Italian-dubbed version. Based on her celebrated autobiographical graphic novel, the film recounts Marjane’s childhood and youth in the Iran of the Islamic revolution and then her experience of exile, intertwining personal memory, collective history, identity and freedom.

On Friday and Saturday evenings, at 10:00 pm, Piazza Sant’Antiocru hosts two special events. On Friday 3 July Francesco Abate takes the stage – together with musicians Renzo Cugis, Fabio Farigu and Betti Manca – with Gli Indegni. Narrazione vagabonda degli anni Ottanta, a story set to music blending memory, narrative rhythm, irony and popular atmospheres. On Saturday 4 July Giancarlo De Cataldo – magistrate, writer and screenwriter who helped renew Italian noir by intertwining investigation, criminal history and the narrative of power – takes the lead in the meeting Povera Patria, hosted by journalist Giuseppe Deiana.

On Saturday 4 July, at 11:00 pm, in the Giardino Comunale di Binzadonnia, the Dopofestival – Digestivo con l’autore also returns, an informal and convivial moment in which the audience can meet the festival’s guests up close over conversation and mirto.

This year once again renews the collaboration with the MAN – Museo d’Arte della Provincia di Nuoro, which brings to Gavoi NODI, a photographic project by Marco Ceraglia dedicated to Sardinia’s smallest villages and to the theme of depopulation, reinterpreted in a poetic key. At the centre of the exhibition is a large collective image portraying all the inhabitants of Banari gathered in the village square, alongside a selection of the residents’ faces. The work thus becomes a starting point for reflecting on community, identity and the bond with one’s place of origin. The title evokes what holds people together within the same story and the same place, but also the knot that ties us to the land, to relationships and to affections. On Saturday 4 July Ceraglia will also stage a participatory action for the festival audience.

And through the streets of the town, in collaboration with the Tyche cultural association, a tribute to Daniela Zedda will also be on display – a photographer who passed away in 2022 and was long linked to the history of L’Isola delle Storie. For the first time, her last work made for the festival will be presented in Gavoi: a series of portraits of guests in dialogue with the area’s traditional jewellery and clothing. A project that continues the thread of the series Zedda created over the years for the festival, always attentive to relating authors arriving from all over the world with Gavoi, its houses, its traditions and its community.

Throughout the village it will also be possible to come across artistic installations inspired by the illustration of Angelo Monne, created by BAM Design – Bottega Artigiana Metalli.

This year too, great attention is devoted to younger audiences with the children’s programme curated by the Lughenè Cultural Association, which enriches the festival days with workshops, readings, games, meetings and performances designed for children and teenagers. Among the first previews, Storie in gioco returns, a reading contest involving around eighty participants and a network of local libraries, following a path of shared readings guided by the librarians. The children’s programme guests include writers Teo Benedetti and Serenella Quarello, and illustrator Lucio Schiavon, also the subject of an exhibition. There will be no shortage of readings with Collettivo LAN-DE-Sì and Angelo Trofa, who bring to Gavoi the shows Storie verdi and Mitomania.

This year’s tributes, which precede some of the scheduled meetings, are dedicated to three central figures of literature and culture: Grazia Deledda, on the centenary of her Nobel Prize award; Wisława Szymborska, thirty years on from her Nobel; and Michela Murgia, a fundamental presence in the history of the festival and in contemporary Italian culture. The readings are entrusted to Gisella Vacca, Maria Loi and Elena Pau. The musical interludes are curated by the L. Cànepa Conservatory of Sassari.

Finally, the collaboration with the students of NOMAD, a widespread school of photography, is renewed: they will document the festival under the guidance of photographer Dario Coletti, head of the school’s Photojournalism department.

L’Isola delle Storie is organised by the L’Isola delle Storie Cultural Association with the support of the Municipality of Gavoi, the Regional Department of Public Education, Cultural Heritage, Information, Entertainment and Sport of the Sardinia Region and the Regional Department of Tourism, Crafts and Commerce of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, the Nuoro Chamber of Commerce, the Fondazione di Sardegna, the Union of Municipalities of Barbagia and the BIM Mountain Catchment Basin of the Taloro. The festival is also made possible thanks to the contribution of institutions, cultural partners, libraries, local organisations and the volunteers who for twenty years have made Gavoi a place of encounter, listening and participation.

Fact sheet

L’Isola delle Storie – 20th edition, Sardinia’s Literary Festival
2–5 July 2026
Gavoi (NU), Barbagia, Sardinia
Free admission

Organisation
L’Isola delle Storie Cultural Association
via Garibaldi 2, 08020 Gavoi (NU)
info@isoladellestorie.it – www.isoladellestorie.it

Press office
Francesca Zanardo – GLASS studio
zanardo@glass-studio.it – t. +39 328 4780660