21 May-22 June 2004. This is a literary festival that started gently two years ago with few expectations, and then took the city by storm. The events consist of international authors reading from a yet unpublished work, an actor reading from one of the authors published texts, and live music, all this in the delightful setting of the Basilica di Massenzio in the Roman Forum. The theme this year is "real/imaginary", and continues with Jonathan Franzen and actress Galatea Ranzi (26 May). Other authors at the festival are Agota Kristof accompanied by Sergio Rubini (28 May), J.M. Gustave Le Clezio and Giuliana LoJodice (28 May), Colson Whitehead and Valeria Golino (1 June), Abbasse Ndione and Licia Maglietta (1 June), Banana Yoshimoto and Micaela Cescon (3 June), Niccol Ammaniti and Lorenza Indovina (8 June), Melania Mazzucco and Margherita Buy (10 June), followed by Azar Nafisi, Jhumpa Lahiri, Carlos Fuentes, Guillermo Arriaga and the grand finale with the South African Nobel prize winner J.M. Coetzee.