Susanne Heinrich, Anna Lewis, Kallia Papadaki and Paolo Piccirillo are emerging writers whose names are still unknown to the general public. Nevertheless, Scritture Giovani has decided to bet on them: names of young people with talent, names that we want to pass on and that we hope will stick in the minds of readers along with the stories these new writers have to tell – and which are collected in this anthology.

Names is the theme of the 2011 edition of the project introduced by Festivaletteratura to give a voice to emerging European narrative. In the wait to see them on major publishing booklists, the Scritture Giovani scheme allows the names of the four young authors to be up there with those of the other guests at the main European festivals - besides Festivaletteratura, The Telegraph Hay Festival and internationales literaturfestival berlin.

Our talent scouting, and promotion of new generations of writers, which Festivaletteratura and our partner festivals started in 2002, has been supported by illycaffè right from the very start. For the three year period running 2010-2012 we can also count on the Fondazione Cariplo. This support means the project can be also embrace literature from countries other than those of the three festivals (for 2011, Greece, with Kallia Papadaki) and focus its attention on younger and as yet unpublished writers through the Scritture Giovani workshop held in Mantua in Spring, with an event open to the public at Festivaletteratura in September.