Scugnizzeria: the book dealer in Scampia

Scugnizzeria and Stephen King

La Scugnizzeria isn't just a bookstore nestled in the inferno of the Vele di Scampia neighborhood, one of the most iconic locations of Naples's criminal underworld. It's also a hub for many young people in the neighborhood who want to delve deeper into reading, take theater and dance classes, and participate in a wide range of cultural activities. They don't succumb to the lure of local clans. And it's also a bookstore affiliated with a small publishing house capable of convincing a best-selling author like Stephen King to publish a book under its imprint.

An internationally renowned author, among the most widely read in the world, has chosen a small publishing house, founded in a bookstore in the Neapolitan neighborhood of Scampia, to publish his anti-gun work. Marotta & Cafiero will publish Guns – Contro le armi , the pamphlet written by the king of horror, Stephen King, following the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the United States, which claimed the lives of twenty children and seven adults.

Rosario and Maddalena

This small undertaking was made possible thanks to the resourcefulness of Rosario Esposito La Rossa and his wife, Maddalena Stornnaiuolo, who managed to connect with the writer's circle and persuaded the legendary figure to trust their small publishing house with the publication of the pamphlet in Italy. Rosario's intense activism within what is considered Naples' toughest neighborhood was crucial to the project's success.

Books in Scampia

Rosario, in fact, is a drug dealer by trade. Not in drugs, in one of the neighborhoods most notorious for the sale of cocaine and heroin, but in books , in the heart of hell. Thirty-year-old Rosario Esposito La Rossa has opened a bookstore in the heart of the Vele neighborhood of Scampia, a stone's throw from the square infamous as the terminal of real-life drug dealing and the virtual setting of the fictional Gomorrah.

Rosario's goal is to sell books, of course, but in the meantime he's managed to open a shop to, as he puts it, "peddle culture" in a neighborhood where there hadn't been a bookshop for 40 years . And the name of this store is already unusual: Scugnizzeria , which brings together an entire social class of the neighborhood—the urchins—and meeting places like a pizzeria or a rotisserie.

Activities of the Scugnizzeria

Over time, La Scugnizzeria was founded in 2017, and this unique bookstore has continued to expand its local projects. These include the Banca della Voce , a small radio station where street urchins record audiobooks for those who can't read; the Ospedale dei Libri, an educational museum on the art of typography; and the Banda degli Onesti , a group that produces and distributes locally sourced books.

Bookstore in Scampia

At the bookstore, Rosario is supported by his brother Antonio and his wife Maddalena Stornaiuolo, and with them he has created a veritable engine of activity in Scampia. A local volunteer association, "Voci di Scampia," raises the voices of those forgotten in this desolate land; a popular library with over 20 volumes collected from across Italy; a rugby team; a community farm; a "made in Scampia" food and wine brand; and "La Fabbrica dei pizzini della legalità," a meeting place for discussions, including with witnesses and victims of crime, about sensitive issues in areas like these. Like legality.

In Rosario's volatile life, his encounter with the violence of the Camorra—not the kind depicted on television, but that of real-life criminals and killers—was dramatic. In 2004, his cousin Antonio Landieri was killed in a fatal ambush in Scampia: to him, Rosario dedicated not just a book, but essentially his entire career as a culture dealer.

Read also:

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• Reading makes you happy, and saving small bookstores is a duty that is worthwhile for all of us.

The cover photo is taken from the Made in Scampia Facebook page