By Nicoletta
The eighth stop on our journey through Italian publishing is about the publishing house minimum fax.
The publishing house was founded by Daniele di Gennaro and Marco Cassini in 1994 in Rome. Minimum fax was officially born in 1993. Marco Cassini and Daniele di Gennaro organized writing courses at the cultural association Essere o non essere in Trastevere until they decided to create their own magazine and distribute it via fax to offices, universities, schools, and clubs.
The magazine mostly consisted of a series of columns.
Ipse dixit, a series of lightning self-reviews; Mosaix, fragments of comic literature; Faxtotum, a guide to navigating the universe of awards and industry events.
The magazine also featured an unpublished work by a prominent author and a space set up as a writing workshop, where authors such as Dacia Maraini, Maria Luisa Spallanzani, Dino Verde, and Stanislao Nievo participated.
The magazine piqued the interest of many intellectuals, including Raffaele La Capria, Sandro Veronesi, Filippo La Porta, Gino Castaldo, and Goffredo Fofi. This fame allowed minimum fax to take a big leap forward.
In 1994, the first books were released: Segreti d’autore by Luigi Amendola and Scrivere è un tic by Francesco Piccolo, along with others on the craft of writing and everything surrounding the writing process: work still ongoing in the Filigrana series.
In 1995, the release of the first book in the Sotterranei series opened the door to the study of American literature.
It was a collection of poems, Scene Italiane by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Since then, many contemporary writers – such as Jonathan Lethem, Rick Moody, Jennifer Egan, and David Foster Wallace (translated by minimum fax for the first time outside of the United States) – and the literary fathers of the previous generation, like Bukowski, Vonnegut, and Carver, have been featured.
Raymond Carver was honored with a series and a publishing project: in March 1999, Racconti in forma di poesia (Where Water Comes Together With Other Water) was released.
This marked a quality leap into a new phase, which later helped highlight the works of Richard Yates, John Barth, Bernard Malamud, Walter Tevis, among others, in the minimum classics series.
In 2000, the launch of Nichel, the series dedicated to Italian fiction.
Under the direction of Nicola Lagioia, it became a point of reference and a qualitative benchmark for the literary research of the entire publishing house, and for its readers.
In 2005, the launch of Indi with Confessioni di un sicario dell’economia by John Perkins.
The series, led for a long time by Christian Raimo, focused on political current affairs, featuring works by authors such as Stefano Liberti, Tomaso Montanari, and Massimo Recalcati.
Since its inception, minimum fax has followed evolving languages, observing them from a transversal perspective.
Alongside the innovators of literature, we publish authors who express the same revolutionary force in their respective artistic fields: the minimum fax cinema and minimum fax music series select the voices and stories of musicians and directors who have shaped the history of their genres, from Stanley Kubrick to David Lynch, from John Coltrane to Thelonious Monk.
Every opportunity is precious for meeting readers: minimum fax is always present at cultural festivals, book fairs, and organizes reading-concert theatrical performances.
The minimum lab courses express the desire to share the processes of our work, alongside professionals from other publishing houses. A permanent workshop for cultural and professional training: at our headquarters, we share experiences related to publishing, writing, audiovisual production, events, digital media, fundraising, and cultural project planning.
Minimum fax media deals with audiovisual production: since 2003, documentaries, television, cross-media cinema. A new way to approach a new series of challenges and encounters, in the single quest around storytelling.
Editorial care also translates into a great attention to graphics.
After a long collaboration with Riccardo Falcinelli, in May 2017, the new graphic project, signed by Patrizio Marini and Agnese Pagliarini, debuted, the result of a long process of shared reflection on the concepts of transversality and independence.
In 2017, changes were of various types.
The publisher of minimum fax became solely Di Gennaro, while editorial direction had been entrusted to Giorgio Gianotto since 2014.
Gianotto is also the editor of nonfiction, where he took over from the writer Christian Raimo, who became a consultant for the Laterza publishing house. Luca Briasco joined the publishing house as the editor of foreign fiction. Briasco is an expert in American literature and was an editor at Einaudi Stile Libero.
The changes affect not only the covers and the editorial team but also the editorial line and, more generally, the publishing house’s project, in an evolving and more complicated context, especially for smaller companies.
We can talk about a new minimum fax.
The new graphics don’t only concern new releases but also the minimum fax catalog with reprints.
The new director, Gianotto, no longer speaks of patterns and divisions within the publishing house but states: “What interests us is not having pre-established patterns: some of the most important books released in recent years are teaching us that the distinction between novels – whether foreign or Italian – and essays is increasingly blurred, and not in the name of experimentalism destined to last for only a season, but due to a genuine perceptual change among authors and readers.”
“Our work is one of mediation, searching for and bringing to the reader ideas, which doesn’t mean ‘objects’, but new thoughts and languages. And here, returning to the previous point, it is the editorial team that guarantees discussions and, therefore, decisions. These are often adventures.”
One thing is for sure, minimum fax has a clear vision of its editorial project, rooted in its origins and always looking towards new languages while maintaining a strong love for music and cinema.
View all the books published by minimum fax available in our catalog.
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