It's a Saturday afternoon at last month's Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, and the place is humming with activity. Parents try to keep overexcited toddlers in check; people jostle for position in queues to get their books signed by a favourite author; and waiters rush to and from tables delivering cups of coffee and sandwiches.
Amid all the hustle and bustle, one man is sitting quietly behind a large white desk, his head bowed in concentration. He has on a pair of industrial-looking grey goggles, which he occasionally flips up to inspect his work. Mario Rossetti is a master engraver for Montegrappa, the luxury Italian pen company, and he was flown to Dubai last month to complete a very special literary commission.
The Montegrappa Writing Prize, which launched in 2013, gives first-time writers from the GCC the chance to have their unpublished manuscripts read by leading UK literary agent Luigi Bonomi, who then works with the selected authors – one winner and four runners-up – to try and secure them a book deal. The winning author also receives a specially designed Montegrappa pen.
This year’s winner, Dubai resident Polly Phillips, has decided she wants the Burj Khalifa engraved on one side of the barrel of the pen and her beloved rescue dog, Popple, on the other. “She’s always with me,” says Phillips. “She has been there through a lot of the writing process.”
So now it’s up to Rossetti to capture both the intricate architecture of the world’s tallest building and Popple, with all her quirks, on two sides of the same pen. It’s a long process. First, Rossetti must sketch the subjects on paper before turning these sketches into computer graphics. These are then discussed with the client before Rossetti starts engraving. “I know how to precisely reproduce the images on the pen,” he says. “The details are often less than a fraction of a millimetre. That’s why I have to work with those magnifying glasses.”
And what happens if he makes a mistake? “There is no way back,” says Rossetti. “I have reached a point where I don’t make mistakes, so I never have to stop.” Unsurprisingly, reaching this point requires years of dedication. Rossetti studied for three years at the School of the Art of Medalmaking in Rome. Hundreds of people apply, but only about a dozen are accepted each year. “If this is not your true passion, you do not survive,” says Rossetti. “It’s really exhausting to go through the process; it has to be your calling.”
Rossetti is the only metal engraver working for Montegrappa, which was founded in 1912. Its products are still manufactured at the original factory near Vicenza in the north-east of Italy. Each pen takes about three weeks to design and engrave, a process that, Rossetti concedes, could be sped up with technology. But that simply isn’t the Monetgrappa way.
“Using laser technology, you can have an image on the metal in three minutes,” he says. “But the art, the skill of using your hands, is different. These pens have the human touch.”
Phillips may have a unique Montegrappa pen, but she knows that, despite winning the award, the hard work starts now. She finds herself in good company, though. The Montegrappa Writing Prize has a strong record of picking out successful authors. In the past few years, an extraordinary number of winners and runners-up have had their manuscripts published, including Annabel Kantaria, who has had four novels published since winning the prize in 2013, and 2016 runner-up Jessica Jarlvi, whose debut novel, What Did I Do?, was last year chosen as Magrudy's Fiction Book of the Year.
“Luigi has already engaged with me, but I’m aware that it doesn’t automatically mean success,” says Phillips. “The big transition is from writer to published author, that’s the dream. It’s really nice to have endorsement for the first time from someone who isn’t blood-related.”
Phillips’s manuscript is a domestic noir about two women who have been friends since they were teenagers. “It’s often the people who are closest to you that can hurt you the most,” she says, understandably refusing to give away any more about the twist.
If history is anything to go by, though, we won’t have to wait long before we can find out for ourselves by reading her published debut novel. It seems that Montegrappa not only has the touch when it comes to making luxury pens, but also in finding the right people to use them.
