Ridda Selvaggia. Children’s Literature Festival , comes from two strong suggestions, one naturalistic and the other literary. On the one hand, the landscape of Lanusei, with the Seleni forest, the archaeological park and the starry night sky visible from the Observatory. On the other, Maurice Sendak’s illustrated book Where the Wild Things Are (Adelphi), which takes us back to wildness and a certain idea of childhood, as an age of life suspended between the vegetal, animal and human kingdoms. Age of becoming, rather than of being, of questions and of the possible. Age of changes, transitions and threshold crossings. The forest, a place of elsewhere, which lies beyond the border of the house and urban space, is the ideal setting for all this. Place par excellence where rites of passage, growth and change occur. A living place, a refuge or a dark place, a living creature that speaks through its inhabitants and puts man in a position to test and discover himself.

Ridda Selvaggia is a literature festival which, starting from stories, embraces the visual and performing arts. It is a community project that involves families, schools, associations, administrations, publishing houses, educators and other literary festivals in Sardinia.

Ridda Selvaggia enters the woods on tiptoe, with the respect due when entering someone else’s house. With eyes, ears and noses alive and wide open. Listening and with the five senses on alert.