23 Apr 2018

World Book Day: the writers of Gambrinus

Today, April 23rd, the world day of books and copyright is celebrated all over the world, a day entirely dedicated to culture, a permanent appointment in national and international cultural events.

Sponsored by UNESCO, this day is therefore a sort of tribute to books, a way to encourage young people to learn and discover the pleasure of reading.

For this reason we at Gambrinus have decided in our own way, to make a personal contribution to this day, telling you within our blog some of the writers of the most famous works that have made of Naples but especially of Gran Caffè Gambrinus the perfect scenery in which those literary works were made that made them virtually immortal.

Gambrinus: between coffee and culture

As many of you already know, Gran Caffè Gambrinus has always been starting from 1860, one of the focal points of our city, the beating heart of the worldly, cultural and literary life of the city of Naples.

Reigns, politicians, journalists, writers and artists of international renown over the years have made it the place to meet, discuss and write verses, as in the best European literary coffee tradition.

This historic local Neapolitan, acquires its maximum splendor in the period that historians have marked as the “Belle Epoqué”. During these very years of the early  XX century, in fact the Gambrinus, becomes the living room of culture and art, in which personality the whole world spent hours talking and designing great ideas and creating masterpieces.

Illustrious writers

So, Italian and especially foreign writers were used to stop here. Recall among the most illustrious guests the writer Gabriele D’Annunzio who composed at the Gambrinus the verses of the famous song “A’vucchella”, the writer Matilde Serao who founded the newspaper “Il Mattino” sitting right at the coffee tables, Benedetto Croce who made his second city of Naples, the Irish writer Oscar Wilde who went to the city of Naples with Lord Alfred Douglas after the sad days of imprisonment, Ernest Hemingway, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre who wrote thoughts about Naples at the tables of Gambrinus.

In short, there is perhaps a better way to celebrate the world day of the book, perhaps sitting just at the tables of Gambrinus, sipping some excellent Neapolitan coffee, leafing through the pages of a book and enjoying all the culture and history that only here is you can breathe.