La Giufa bookshop is a unique place in the capital, located in the University district of San Lorenzo, halfway between a literary café and a bookshop offers a refined choice of books from the Italian and international market, also leaving room for graphic novels, comics and illustrated books.
Giufà means sitting comfortably: enjoying a good tea and perhaps lingering over a fantastic book by an author who for some reason had never heard of before. In addition to what has already been said, the Caffè Giufà bookshop organize events concerning book presentations and sometimes even reading groups with a minimum attendance of 5 times a month.
Thursday February 11 Fabio Visintin (awarded Venetian illustrator and cartoonist) together with the critic Richard Falcinelli presented Historiate, book of illustrations and sketches by various authors that explain what lies behind the creation of a book cover.
Here is the interview released for FIRST Art:
Have you ever been to the Giufà bookshop?
“I have to say no but I had a very good time, this is one of those places where you find the books you can't find (laughs), however, the difference is made by the booksellers, and the importance of a bookshop that is also a comfortable place that turns into a literary café becomes fundamental.”
Was it difficult to get started?
“More than anything else, you start many times, in the sense that the commissions often change, the job changes, I worked for 7 years at Corriere dei piccoli and from day to morning they closed the newspaper. You have to know how to reinvent yourself, this is a job that, notwithstanding the fact that you design for the rest, often changes completely. You have to be very flexible, but it's what I know how to do and I try to do it at my best, so far it has worked."
Would you have preferred to be a cartoonist or would it have been too heavy full time?
“I did it for a while and it was also nice, let's say that actually I was a cartoonist only as an author, I would never have been able to draw a Tex…as an author it is beautiful because it allows you to tell stories, but let's say that by doing illustrations I found a balance.”
Is making book covers an art? Is there art in making the cover?
“Here at the beginning of the Historiate book I put one thing, a definition that does Milton Glazer, who is one of the tutelary deities of graphics, he says that art is a job, and trying to replace the word art with the word job, when a job responds well to the request it is simply a good job, when a work is excellent in a way that even we don't know because it moves us or gives us something more is an excellent work, and that work becomes art. "
When making covers, do you try to represent exactly what the writer wanted to say in the book?
“I love writers very much, what they write fascinates me a lot and I am pleased to satisfy them, when I meet the very thought of a writer it gives me a lot of satisfaction and I am very pleased.”
Do you have any anecdotes to tell?
“A very important cover for me was the one for “The Eternal Night of the Rabbit” by Giacomo Gardini who made me raise the quotations towards the publisher because in this book Gardini was a rookie and sold several copies, an article came out where the literary critic said he did not know this author but that he was intrigued by the cover .
This was a big point in my favour, in publishing they say that if a book doesn't work it's the fault of the cover and if the book works the cover has nothing to do with it, yet that time it had something to do with it."
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All the photos in this article, except for images 5 and 6, were taken and belong to Gerardo Iannacci.
