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ROBERT
CRAIS:
Festivaletteratura - Mantova, Italy
Festivaletteratura
is one of the foremost literary
festivals in Italy, celebrating
fiction and nonfiction from around
the world. In 2007, the American
crime fiction guests were RC,
Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane,
George Pelecanos, and the great
Elmore Leonard.
Mantova is a beautiful town
near Milan, with a population of
about 50,000 people. The entire town
of Mantova gives itself over to the
week-long celebration of literature,
during which the population grows to
almost 150,000.
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Programming and
bookselling takes place
in tents that fill the
town squares. |
RC was
part of a
standing-room-only event
on crime fiction.
Earlier that day, a
press conference was
held, where RC, Dennis
Lehane, Michael
Connelly, and George
Pelecanos were peppered
with questions. |
l to r:
RC, Dennis Lehane,
Michael Connelly, George
Pelecanos
The
picture above shows the
journalists filling the
tent. |
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And
here’s the main event:
The crime fiction panel
was one of the
hot-ticket events for
the festival, and sold
out weeks in advance.
Well over a thousand
people filled a
beautiful, outdoor venue
on Friday night. (l to
r: Michael Connelly,
translator, Dennis
Lehane, Paolo Zaccagnini
(the moderator), RC,
translator, George
Pelecanos.) |
After the
event, the huge crowd
qued up and the writers
signed books.
Here’s
RC, GP, and DL facing
the crowd (MC was
next to DL.) ! |
This
picture shows what it
looked like from the
writers’ side of the
table |
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The
festival wasn’t only
interviews and
appearances. RC has been
a fan of Neil Gaiman’s
brilliant comics work
for years, and finally
got to meet him! |
And
here’s RC being
photographed by the
Italian Vanity Fair. |
RC has
been photographed
thousands of times, but
never like this! Vanity
Fair used this enormous
Polaroid. It weighs
almost two hundred
pounds. Only five such
cameras exist in the
world, and the film
stock is limited. When
the current supply of
film stock is gone, no
more portraits will be
taken with these
cameras. |
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