There are dozens of literary festivals in Italy and nearly all of them work the same way: an author turns up, talks about their book, signs some copies, leaves. Procida Racconta does something different, and for once the word “unique” holds up. Six authors spend a few days on the island. Each one “adopts” a resident of Procida, gathers their story and turns it into a new piece of writing. On the final evening the stories are read in public, with the real subject present, sitting in the audience.
It is held in June, for about five days. The dates of the next edition have not been published yet and you will not find them here, because we do not have them: check them on the festival’s website.
How the adoption works
The mechanics are simple and that is why they work. An author is put in touch with somebody from the island — a fisherman, a schoolteacher, a retired ship’s master, anybody — and spends time with them. Not a half-hour interview: days. Then they write a new story that grows out of that life.
On the final evening, the story is read aloud. The person it is about is there, listening to their own life told by somebody else, in front of their neighbours. It is an uncomfortable and beautiful situation, and it changes the tone completely compared with a book launch: the person reading knows the subject is listening.
The stories from each edition go into a published volume. Over time this has built up a kind of narrative register of the island, written from outside but with real people inside it.
Who is behind it
It is organised by the publisher Nutrimenti, which since 2014 has also run a bookshop on the island: this is not a publisher coming down for three days, it is a publisher with a shutter here. The artistic director is Chiara Gamberale.
The festival was born inside the programme of Procida Italian Capital of Culture 2022, the year that changed the island’s relationship with visitors. Two concrete legacies of that year remain: this festival and the reopening of Palazzo d’Avalos, the former prison, which the mayor Dino Ambrosino names as the main bequest of 2022.
Among past guests: Concita De Gregorio, Donatella Di Pietrantonio, Fabio Genovesi, Paolo Nori, Michele Bravi, Gavin Francis, Emanuele Trevi. That is not a list of minor names, and for a festival held on a quay it is a fact that says something.
Where it takes place
In Piazza Marina Grande and on the Molo di Sopraflutto. That is to say at the point where you land: Marina Grande is the harbour for the ferries and hydrofoils, with via Roma along the front, the church of Santa Maria della Pietà, the historic bars and the bus terminus.
Holding a literary festival on the quay, in the evening, with the water two metres away, is a choice you can feel. There is no auditorium, there is no separation between hall and street: people passing stop. And it is also why the places are limited.
The practical advantage for anyone coming from outside is obvious: you do not have to climb anywhere. You are zero minutes from the quay, a few metres from the bars — Bar Dal Cavaliere and Bar Roma are right there — and a couple of steps from the small harbour beaches, the Lingua and the Silurenza.
Dates, places and how to organise yourself
The dates are not published. What we know is that the festival is held in June, for about five days: the eighth edition ran from 5 to 9 June 2024, and the 2025 edition duly took place. The exact days of the next edition have to be looked up on procidaracconta.it, and nowhere else.
Entry is free but places are limited. It is a combination worth understanding: free does not mean you get in regardless. On a quay, with the chairs counted, turning up on the dot means standing at the back. Arrive early, above all for the final evening, which is the reason the festival exists.
June, from a travel point of view, is one of the island’s three good months along with May and September: the sea is usable, everything is open, the crowds are still manageable. The page on June in Procida and the one on when to go go into the detail.
An island that has been written about for two centuries
The festival did not come out of nowhere. Procida is one of the most written-about places in the bay of Naples, in proportion to its four square kilometres. In 1852 Alphonse de Lamartine set “Graziella” here, and that girl still gives her name to the election that is the central moment of the Sagra del Mare. In 1957 Elsa Morante set “L’isola di Arturo” here, and in 1994 Michael Radford shot “Il Postino” here with Massimo Troisi.
The result is that the island reaches visitors already narrated: you have seen the houses of the Corricella before you see them, the Pozzo Vecchio beach took its nickname from the film. Procida Racconta turns the mechanism round: instead of repeating the stories that already exist, it has new ones written, and with people who are still here.
If the literary thread interests you, the map of the film’s locations is in the locations of “Il Postino”, while Morante’s novel and its places are covered in the article devoted to it. They are two readings that make the same streets different.
Why it is worth it, and who it is not for
It is worth it if you are interested in Procida as an inhabited place and not only as a postcard. This festival is the island’s only appointment where the content is the people who live there, told by good writers. If you have read Elsa Morante’s “L’isola di Arturo” or seen “Il Postino”, here you see the same operation carried out today, and with living people.
It is not worth it if you are after a festival with big stages, numbered tickets and a robust organisational machine: it is not that, and does not claim to be. And it is not worth it if you do not understand Italian, because the readings are in Italian and the language is the whole point.
One last thing, which I say as a resident: the festival is also a good excuse to come in June rather than in August. In those days the island is at its best — the sea is there, the restaurants are open, the ferries are not besieged. The evenings are spent on the quay, the days at the Chiaia or the Chiaiolella, and there are still beds to be had: the overview is in where to stay in Procida.
If instead you are looking for the island’s other literary appointment, there is the Premio Procida - Isola di Arturo - Elsa Morante, founded in February 1986 a few months after the writer’s death and organised by the council: the date of the current edition is not published, so it has to be looked up from year to year.
