Call for Papers

Call for papers
n. 34 – 11/2025

 

Successful Literature in 21st Century Italy

 

edited by Luca Gallarini, Elisa Gambaro, and Mauro Novelli

(Università degli Studi di Milano)

 

Keywords: bestseller; contemporary literature; literary genres; sales rankings; mass literature

 

Forty years and more after the pioneering studies of Giuseppe Petronio (Letteratura di massa. Letteratura di consumo, 1979), Gian Carlo Ferretti (Il bestseller all’italiana, 1983) and the school of Vittorio Spinazzola (Il successo letterario, 1985), it is time to take stock again of the narrative works capable of mobilising the consensus of the national public. In Italy, the first quarter of the 21st century has seen the decline of a unique and absolute idea of literature, fully responding to the taste of militant or academic criticism, which has reacted (with rare exceptions) to the situation by accentuating indifference—when not contempt—towards texts capable of satisfying the aesthetic imagination of younger or culturally untrained readers. But if the critics do not intend to renounce their social function, today more than yesterday they will have to look at the literary system in its entirety, grasping the emergence of extremely interesting phenomena. This, of course, if one believes that bestsellers cannot be dismissed out of hand as mere commercial operations lacking originality, and that the relativisation of aesthetic values, conceived differently by different segments of the public, in a modern and democratic society represents a physiological, not pathological state.

In the words of Gian Arturo Ferrari, who has interpreted the category of “successful literature” in a purely economic sense, “nulla più dei dati di vendita globalmente presi, non solo e non tanto le classifiche dei bestseller, ci parla dei movimenti profondi, tellurici, del gusto. Messi tutti insieme, se mai fosse possibile, ci darebbero una accuratissima mappa, una specie di Tac, della cultura di un paese e della sua evoluzione”. Successful contemporary fiction deserves to be studied not in order to revolutionise the scholastic canon or that of the cultured classes, but to understand the modalities of social valorisation, the developments of the collective imagination, and to understand which expressive instruments are capable of intercepting the tastes of a public that is increasingly sensitive to extra-literary stimuli, such as video games, film and television seriality and comics, a genre that today is experiencing forms of ennobling that were unimaginable in the past, considering the spread of the graphic novel and its distribution in bookshops. The successful book also prompts other phenomena to be reflected upon, starting with fan fiction (see: Stefano Calabrese, Anatomia del bestseller, 2015).

The field of investigation of commercial feedback is usually entertainment literature, but there is no shortage of more institutional examples, in an advanced stage of canonisation: suffice it to recall the cases of Andrea Camilleri and Elena Ferrante, which demonstrate in an exemplary way—almost a century after Gramsci’s reflections—how popular national literature has finally become. Not only: the boundaries of the market and the public are also increasingly permeable. Geronimo Stilton is by now a planetary brand, no less than the aforementioned Camilleri, Ferrante and various other writers who have also made inroads abroad, as confirmed by the Italian Publishers’ Association’s data on the foreign rights of Italian writers, which has been growing steadily for the past twenty years. This obviously does not mean that other literatures have ceased to represent a point of reference, as the persistent practice of hiding behind an anglicising pseudonym (Erin Doom, Felicia Kingsley, Kira Shell) suggests. Foreign authors continue to top the charts and enjoy a large appeal: both representatives of traditionally hegemonic Western literatures and writers from other latitudes, not infrequently by virtue of successful multimedia soft power initiatives. It will therefore be fundamental to study the reception of foreign bestsellers in Italy, verifying affinities and differences with respect to the horizon of expectation in the country of origin.

Starting from these premises, this issue of Other Modernities is calling for contributions revolving around, though not limited to, the following areas, circumscribing the field of analysis to literary production from 2000 to the present:

 

  • typology and Italian declinations of the most successful literary genres (detective stories, romance, fantasy, horror, science fiction, historical novels, biographies and autobiographies...)
  • single works that have reached the top of the charts or the overall production of a successful Italian author;
  • successful examples of Italian children’s, youth and young adult literature;
  • Italian books and authors that have had a wide impact abroad, spreading images, models and figures of Italianness;
  • foreign books and authors that have had a wide impact in Italy, spreading images, models and figures of their respective countries of origin;
  • presence and functions in the public debate of successful writers;
  • the comic strip, in its various declinations and national specificities;
  • Italian fan fiction;
  • official and user-generated literary rankings (Amazon, Ibs, Goodreads etc.);
  • Italian book influencing, with particular attention to YouTube, TikTok and Instagram;
  • the modes of commercial communication, with attention to YouTube, TikTok, Twitter and Instagram;
  • national specificities in literary production and fruition on Wattpad and other telematic platforms;
  • the relationship between bestsellers and films, television series and animated series;
  • the relationship between bestsellers and modes of access (paper books, e-readers, audiobooks and podcasts);
  • the relationship between bestsellers and places of sale (online bookstores, physical bookstores, newsstands, etc.);
  • the relationship between bestsellers and publishing (small, medium and large-scale publishing; self-publishing etc.);
  • the role of Italian literary prizes in the context of exploitation;
  • gender dynamics in the sphere of access to Italian literature;
  • gender dynamics in the sphere of successful Italian literary production;
  • Italian and foreign critical reflection on bestsellers, from a methodological perspective.

 

The list of topics abovementioned is not meant to be exhaustive and the Scientific Committee will consider other proposals submitted by scholars who intend to collaborate in the issue of the journal, with a view to expand the investigation of the area with articulate and original research.

 

If you wish to contribute to Other Modernities issue 25, you are kindly required to submit an abstract (max 200 words) alongside a short CV to the email address amonline@unimi.it, by the 15th October 2024.

 

The complete contribution will have to be submitted by 14th February 2025.

 

Other Modernities accepts contributions in Italian, Spanish, French and English.

 

The issue will be published by the end of November 2025.

 

We also welcome book reviews and interviews to authors and scholars who investigate the aforementioned topics.

 

Moreover, Other Modernities will also consider publishing non-thematic essays in the indexed section “Off the Record”, following the conditions and deadlines indicated for thematic essays in this Call for Papers.

 

Contributors should feel free to contact the editors to discuss and clarify the objectives of their proposals, with a view to making the issue as homogeneous as possible also from a methodological point of view. The editors can be contacted via the Editorial Board (amonline@unimi.it).