Publisher Lina Brun has always lived every part of her life to the full and, at 86, she still has plenty of dreams. One in particular looks across the ocean: to bring her books to the United States, along with the method she uses to teach foreign languages to children. With the Publishing House that bears her name, she has turned a lifetime of experience – school, travel and writing – into a project that combines print and digital.

She has been an entrepreneur for more than twenty-five years, but she started out as a schoolteacher and tour guide. “At eighteen I was teaching primary school,” she tells La Stampa. “I wanted to be independent, and I had always wanted to travel, so I decided to lead groups of tourists around Europe. It was the Sixties, and I studied at night what I would tell them during the day.”

Born shortly before the Second World War, Lina Brun holds on to images that have never left her. Her father worked for Werner Abegg, the Swiss textile industrialist who ran the Cotonificio Valle Susa cotton mills, and little Lina spent her time in the Abegg family's large garden, playing bocce with a friend. One day, in the distance, she saw German soldiers trying on gas masks; outside, on the road, tanks rolled by: it was the war. After the conflict, it was above all teaching and travel that shaped her path, leading in 1999 to the founding of Edizioni Lina Brun, the small Publishing House that today has one hundred and sixty titles.

The catalogue includes essays and books on Turin and Piedmont, on Italy's most charming villages, on the residences of the House of Savoy and on local food and wine traditions. Many of the volumes are written by the founder herself. “Profumo di tartufi [The Scent of Truffles] came about when I was taking some journalists truffle hunting and couldn't find a book to read on the subject. So I told myself: I'll write one.” Published in 2007, it is still in print: “I've just delivered eighty copies in the Langhe,” the author says. Most of the titles are for children: “They make up more than seventy percent of the business, and I wrote practically all of them myself.”

The stories often grow out of observations of real animals, which become protagonists and companions in learning. Among them are Pepper the Dachshund, Magnus the Kitten, and Black, the Dog Who Helps a Family of Little Rabbits. Friendship runs through many of the tales, alongside family, nature and diversity. The books also come to life through the free Lina Brun app, which introduces young children to foreign languages through words and sentences read by native speakers. “A child should never be left alone in front of the screen,” she explains. “The screen is just a blackboard: then you put it aside and learn from the world around you.” The method is available in English, Italian and French, while some publications are also available in Spanish, German, Portuguese and Romanian.

Now Lina Brun is looking ahead: she hopes the business will carry on, and she aims to expand abroad, particularly into the United States, to reach new markets and new people – which is, after all, the most fitting goal for a life built on encounters with others.

“Communication brings people closer: when we truly get to know each other, we can become friends. We are only enemies because we don't know each other well enough.” This is the philosophy of a Publisher who, in the pages of her books and in life, has never stopped believing in the power of friendship.