Dreams can also come true in the shadow of concrete blocks silhouetted against the leaden sky of the outskirts of the suburbs, in Scampia. It demonstrates this Rosario Esposito La Rossa, a young publisher and founder of the bookshop The Scugnizzeria, who managed to get the echo of Stephen King among the alleys of the district of Naples known for decay and the Camorra.
«Taken by the euphoria of having become part of the Mondadori distribution circuit, we decided to dare by contacting the master of world publishing. Following a simple email, we were told we didn’t have the money to sit at the table with Stephen King, but we insisted. The meeting with the Italian agent was crucial, Roberto Santachiara, which convinced him to give us the rights by telling him about our reality “explains Esposito La Rossa who with his publishing house Marotta & Cafiero, donated to him in 2010 by the historical founders and renovated with the use of vegetable inks and glues without plasticizers for biodegradable books, will publish Guns, an essay by King unpublished in Italy.
The choice is not random at all, the young publisher has found this work that sounds like one declaration of war on arms, written after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut, and considered it ad hoc to continue to weave the common thread of social commitment in the territory of feuds. “We are a small publishing house of civil fiction which, despite becoming a cultural company with names of international level such as the Nobel laureate Günter Grass, Raffale La Capria, Osvaldo Soriano and Ernesto Che Guevara, always pursues the goal of telling the suburbs of the world, spreading culture among young people. Through the essay by the writer of 350 million copies, as an intellectual activist, we intend to launch a warning against violence “, he continues explaining that even the date of publication is not accidental: the May 4th, according to the Neapolitan popular historical tradition, it is the day of removals and, more generally, of great changes.
The social commitment of Rosario Esposito La Rossa, appointed Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by the President of the Republic, has solid roots: after years of association activity, at the age of 19 he became a publisher and, in 2017, together with wife Maddalena Stornaiuolo, gave birth to The Scugnizzeria, a bookshop defined as a “book-dealing square” where they offer doses of amazing literature to children and young people, keeping them away from the street. “We were born and raised in Scampia, here we created our family and our business to offer young people what we didn’t have when we were teenagers. We have recovered an abandoned space, becoming the entrepreneurs of the neighborhood who with culture try to change things from the inside “says the publisher-bookseller, among other things the cousin of Antonio Landieri, an innocent victim of the Camorra, not hiding his pride to have built a permanent cultural garrison in the desert on the outskirts, where a bookshop had not stood for about forty years.
The young couple from Scampia never surrendered to the underworld of their neighborhood nor in the face of the crisis caused by the pandemic: they continued to tirelessly erupt books in the shadow of Vesuvius, carrying out engaging activities ranging from art to theater and literature. . “While everything was still, we set up the Biblioteca degli Scugnizzi, where young people can read and study; referring to the Neapolitan tradition we have consolidated the initiative of the suspended book which has allowed us to ensure books to hundreds of children, in the latter period also to the young students of the elementary school “Eugenio Montale” in Scampia, who return to class after Christmas holidays they found a welcome book on the counter “he adds, lingering over Gym of artists, another multifunctional space inaugurated inside de The Scugnizzeria to delight in theater, cinema, dance and music. Acting courses, held by his wife, have allowed some urchins to fly from Vele di Scampia to the red carpet of international cinema. “Enough, a short film against prejudice, made thanks to a free acting workshop that involved young people from every corner of the neighborhood and also from neighboring municipalities “, he explains,” after being presented at the Venice Film Festival and having received awards in various festival, this summer was awarded the Silver Ribbon ». A contemporary fairy tale, a path of rebirth marked by culture and humanity that the two spouses have undertaken with passion to build an alternative world to crime.
Among other things, they are stipulating a memorandum of understanding with the Juvenile Court to offer young people stumbled on the wrong path paths to work placement and put to the test at The Scugnizzeria. Meanwhile, the barrage of good news is unstoppable: they have just announced the construction of the Ospedale dei Libri, the first didactic museum of typographic art in Campania. “We have purchased a space above the bookcase, where we will repair books and create stories, specifically we will produce plantable artisan paper, we will print books with movable type in wood and lead, with machines from the late 1800s we have recovered, inspired by the pedagogist’s school typography Freinet »concludes by underlining that peddling culture represents a form of redemption in a territory where, by sowing knowledge, the terrain of crime dries up.
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