The fairytale is one of the world’s oldest literary genres, a means for understanding life and the passage between infancy and adulthood.
Tales are important because of the way they are spun out each time they are told, for the new threads that are added as the story passes from mouth to mouth, said Italo Calvino.
But the fairytale is an ever-evolving genre, offering new meaning, shifting with both the times and the age of the reader. And the oldest fairytale of all –probably Indo-European in origin– is certainly Cinderella, called Cenerentola in Italian, Cuzazenere in Triestine dialect and Pepelka in Slovenian.

For the delight of children and adults, these different versions of the fairytale will be read out at the Children’s Section of the Slovene National Library in Via Filzi at 5 pm on Thursday 10th October.
This event is one of the many organised to support Trieste’s application as UNESCO Creative City for Literature and promote the city’s wide cultural array. One of the international projects backing the UNESCO application focuses on children’s and young adult literature and is called LETS Wonder.
Trieste’s publishing houses have gone down in the history of children’s literature. A vast majority of the children’s literature books in Italy, with certain excellent results, were published here, starting from 1842.
So let’s get together to listen to some lovely stories in the languages and dialect we have been accustomed to since a very young age.

Image: “Cenerentola” Miela Reina, published by EL in 1976