THE PALERMITANER
The Palermitaner was born from the meeting of illustrators who share the goal of representing the soul of the city of Palermo in lines, shapes and colours, offering personal visions that reveal some of its unique aspects.
This is how the story of Palermo is told in fifty covers of an imaginary magazine, published in print for the first time. In these pages, the city becomes theatre, myth and memory: a choral volume of visions and stories, in which the image is both research and result.
“There was a moment when Palermo, wounded and weary, seemed to have been swallowed up by silence. That was when I felt the urgent need to react, to offer the city an image different from the stereotypical one of tambourines and postcard cannoli. This is how The Palermitaner was born: as a creative and emotional act, an invitation to rewrite Palermo with new eyes.”
Flavia D’Anna
The project
The Palermitaner took shape from an idea by Flavia D’Anna, who recounts the genesis of the project in the book.
From the outset, the intention was to create a collective work in which the constellation of visions, contrasts and emotions of this city could be represented through the eyes and creativity of illustrators.
Today, The Palermitaner is a community of authors, readers and citizens who continue to explore ways of telling the story of their city. It is a living project, born out of love and the courage not to give in to banality, but to always seek new ways of telling stories.
The book is divided into three thematic sections: Urban Rituals, introduced by an original text by Federico Lupo; Magical Palermo, introduced by an original text by Alessia Rotolo; A Cry and a Song, introduced by an original text by Mario Valentini.
Diego Emanuele, editorial director of Forward Edizioni, explains in his introductory text how Italo Calvino, in Invisible Cities, reminds us that every place has its own flip side: splendour and fragility, idyll and unease. Palermo is no exception; indeed, it fully embodies this dialectic.
È in questa tensione costante che si inserisce The Palermitaner, un progetto che Forward Edizioni sceglie di pubblicare perché rappresenta alla perfezione la nostra idea di editoria: un luogo in cui la narrazione visiva diventa strumento critico e poetico.
We believe that as a publishing house, our task is to recognise those stories that go beyond the surface, reflecting the complexity of places and the communities that inhabit them. Palermo, in this case, is both the backdrop and the protagonist: fragile and powerful, austere and popular, a city that resists stereotypes and can only be understood through the diverse perspectives of those who live there.
Publishing The Palermitaner therefore means preserving an act of collective love, a story that belongs not to individual voices but to an entire community, and which we wanted to transform into a book to ensure its longevity, memory and dissemination.
CONTRIBUTORS
Federico Lupo
(Palermo, 1984) is an artist and designer, lecturer in graphic design and painting at higher education institutions. He has worked on projects in museums and independent organisations. He is involved in art publishing. In 2017, he founded the graphic design studio Tomo.
Alessia Rotolo
(Palermo, 1979) loves Palermo and its three markets, the four districts, the Genius and Santuzza. Discovering stories and telling them is his greatest skill, driven by an unrelenting passion for journalism.
Mario Valentini
(Messina, 1971) studied in Bologna and lives in Palermo, where he teaches and writes fiction. He has published the following books: Voglia di lavorare poca (Portofranco, 2001), In certi quartieri (Mesogea, 2007), Come un sillabario (Mesogea, 2015), Così cominciano i serial killer (Mesogea, 2017), La minuscola (Exòrma, 2018), Vangeli nuovissimi (Quodlibet, 2021), Quattro giovani malviventi in fuga (Exòrma, 2024), and Canzoni liofilizzate.
Those who purchase the book will have the opportunity to choose their favourite dust jacket from eight selected designs representing different facets of the city of Palermo Acqua e Zammù (Water and Zammù) – Flavia D'Anna, Amore e Morte (Love and Death) – Luogo Comune, La cabina di Mondello (The Mondello Cabin) – Laura Wood, La cassata (The Cassata) – Monica Alletto, L'isolotto (The Islet) – Federica Scalise, Rami e Radici (Branches and Roots) – Alessandro Bioletti, Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) – Lorenzo Duina, U patruni e U sutta (The Boss and the Mistress) – Gloria Di Bella.
The volume contains the original illustrations by Ale Martoz, Alessandra Berenato,
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