INKWAVES – Nicola Lagioia on Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Wednesday June 24, 2026  6:00 PM
Nicola Lagioia

on Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

in conversazion with Claudio Pagliara

We are pleased to host Nicola Lagioia at the Institute as one of the most important voices in contemporary Italian literature and culture. His presence is especially meaningful not only because of his literary achievements, but also because of his rare ability to bring literature into conversation with the social, ethical, and cultural questions of our time.

Lagioia is the third author featured in Inkwaves, the literary series conceived by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York in collaboration with the Alferj literary agency. True to the spirit of Inkwaves—where writing moves across languages, traditions, and inner worlds—the series creates a dialogue between Italian and American writers, each invited to reflect on a book from the other county that has profoundly shaped both their work and their lives.

Nicola Lagioia has chosen Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead:

Reason for choosing Gilead by Marilynne Robincon 

Nicola Lagioia: “Gilead is a long letter sent into the future, addressed to a seven-year-old boy who will be able to read it only after the sender—his father—is no longer alive. We read this novel, written as a letter—one of the most delicate and profound works of recent decades—in the narrator’s present. At the same time, we know that its contents will be unsealed when the writer is already gone, so we are also in the future, inside the heart of a boy who has grown into a man, that miraculous spark in which clocks stand still and all time is finally redeemed”

Bio

(CREDIT: Chiara Pasqualini)

Nicola Lagioia was born in Bari in 1973. He directs the multimedia cultural magazine Lucy. He is among the authors and hosts of Pagina 3, the cultural press review on Radio Rai 3. From 2017 to 2023 he directed the Turin International Book Fair. He has been both a selector and later a juror at the Venice International Film Festival. He has worked for several publishing houses. With minimum fax he published Three Ways to Get Rid of Tolstoy (2001), and with Einaudi he published Westerners for Beginners (2004), Bringing It All Back Home (2009; winner of the Viareggio-Rèpaci Prize, the Vittorini Prize, and the Volponi Prize), Ferocity (2014; winner of the Strega Prize and the Mondello Prize), and The City of the Living (2020; winner of the Alessandro Leogrande Prize, the Bottari Lattes Prize, and the Naples Prize). For Chora Media he created the podcast The City of the Living. He writes for various newspapers, including La Repubblica and La Stampa. His books have been translated into 20 countries.