2025 edition of literature festival will be held in Stadio Palatino.
Rome’s free international literature festival returns this summer in the spectacular open-air setting of the Palatine Hill over six evenings from 8-16 July.
The 24th edition of the prestigious literary event features a host of award-winning Italian and international authors who will read their work, written especially for the festival.
The writers’ texts will be freely inspired by the 2025 theme – Returns – and they will be accompanied on stage by actors including Isabella Ragonese and Michele Riondino.
Organisers say the theme is “among the most ancient and profound themes of literature, a metaphor for life itself” and can also be interpreted in a contemporary way, “through the prism of migration and exile”.
The festival’s guest writers and poets this year include Mariangela Gualtieri, Ali Smith, László Krasznahorkai, Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Liz Moore and Jenny Erpenbeck, among many others.
There will also be two special events to mark the centenary of the births of Andrea Camilleri and Flannery O’Connor, and a tribute to Pier Paolo Pasolini, 50 years after his death.
Events take place on the Palatine Hill on the evenings of 8, 9, 11, 13, 15 and 16 July, along with another date in Ostia, on 19 July, in collaboration with the Puntasacra Film Fest.
Situated on the eastern side of the Domus Flavia-Augustana, the sunken Palatine Stadium was built by Emperor Domitian in the late first century AD.
Tickets for the literature festival are free of charge, subject to availability, and are distributed on the night from 20.00.
Events begin at 21.00, with access to the Palatine Stadium from 20.30. For full programme details see official website.
