Procida Racconta

A literary festival born on Arturo's island

Procida Racconta is the literary festival of the Municipality of Procida, the island in the Metropolitan City of Naples famously immortalized by Elsa Morante in Arturo's Island. Conceived in 2015 by writer Chiara Gamberale, who serves as artistic director, in collaboration with the Rome-based publisher Nutrimenti—which has operated a bookstore on the island since 2014—and currently produced by CreaVità, the event has grown with each edition to become one of the most recognizable cultural highlights in Campania and a key milestone that supported Procida's nomination as the Italian Capital of Culture 2022.

The formula: six authors in search of a character

The festival's mechanism is intentionally Pirandellian and has remained unchanged for ten editions. Six authors—novelists, writers, and singer-songwriters—arrive on the island at the start of the week and have just a few days to choose a local resident: they meet them, listen to them, and follow them through their daily lives. From this encounter, an original short story is born; not a stylistic exercise, but a lived experience woven into a real biography. On the final evening, each author reads their text on stage alongside the "character" who inspired it: a rare moment of connection between the island community and the writers.

• Arrival of the authors on the island and search for their characters
• Public evening meetings in Piazza Marina Grande, from Wednesday to Friday
• Writing of the six original stories over the course of four days
• Final evening with readings and musical performances on the breakwater pier

The venues: the square, the gardens, the pier

The heart of the festival is Piazza Marina Grande, the port of Procida with its colorful houses: here, at sunset, the square fills with chairs and becomes an open-air theater. Some morning events are held in the Giardini di Santa Margherita, while the final evening takes place on the breakwater pier of the Marina di Procida tourist port, with the sea behind the readers. In previous editions, the festival has attracted over three thousand attendees from all over Italy over four days.

A book that grows every year

After each edition, the six stories are collected by Nutrimenti into a volume of the Procida Racconta series, which since 2015 has built a small library dedicated to the island and its voices: Procida Racconta 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, followed by 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. It is a collective narrative archive where fishermen, teachers, artisans, and the youth of Procida become the protagonists of pages signed by some of the most prominent names in contemporary Italian literature.

Literature and music together

In recent years, the formula has opened up to singer-songwriters, who participate in writing the stories and curate the musical interludes for the final evening. The result is a multidisciplinary festival where the written word coexists with singer-songwriter music and the island's soundscape: the sea, the boats, and the voices of the square.

Why it's worth the trip

Procida Racconta is not a series of book presentations; it is a festival created together with the inhabitants. Those arriving by ferry from Naples find an island of just over four square kilometers that, for four days, speaks of itself through those who live there. Between one meeting and the next, there is time for a walk to Terra Murata and Marina Corricella, a swim at Chiaiolella, and a seafood dinner: the ideal setting to understand why this small June event has become a ritual in Campania.