Cavesa wrote:A bit of a side question: what "lower" genres are popular among the italian writers, what can one look forward to? I would like to read Eco or Calvino one day but I need lots of other books usually (and italian is definitely on my list). Are there many polars? Historical fiction? fantasy? Thrillers? BDs?
There's a huge tradition of crime novels. Seems like for any given area of Italy there's at least one author who writes "gialli" set there. There are a couple of very famous literary historical fiction novels (Il nome della rosa, Il gattopardo) but it's not really my thing so I don't know how well represented it is as a "lower" genre. Same for fantasy; Dino Buzzati is famous for magical realism etc., very popular but again not my thing. Thriller books (and films) seem relatively rare. I know there are BDs but I've not checked them out. They're not as big as in France but they certainly exist.
Personally I enjoy "realistic" modern fiction, and there's quite a lot of that in Italian. Stories about families, relationships, experiences in the recent political and economic climate, that kind of thing.