“My family can be said to have never existed as such.” A collection of short stories published posthumously, in which Piero Chiara’s lovers find all the contents of his narrative style: Lake Maggiore, the gossips of the village, the fixed time of provincial life, the lost memory, the cynicism of the human being. Starting from the twenties of the last century, the events reported arrive up to the very early eighties, to ideally identify with...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Today I’m going to be tough (and I’m crying while writing these lines).” Wandering through the shelves of bookstores these days you will find the latest reprint of the literary debut of Édouard Louis. A student of Didier Eribon, to whom the work is dedicated, he follows in his footsteps with the impulsive unscrupulousness that comes from being a few years younger than his master. Being able to do so, we read this...
“I don’t want to love him so as not to lose him.” Viola is a young journalist who, for work reasons, decides to move from Naples to Milan to work in the editorial office of a large newspaper. As often happens, however, dreams clash with harsh reality, and Viola finds herself chasing low-paid and temporary jobs. In parallel with her life, that of Ershela, the other protagonist of the book, runs wild; a young Albanian...
“She had married late, had become a mother late and was now aging prematurely.” Total light in the style and in the story told. A book that enlightens the reader for the narrative delicacy of the author, and for the desire to bring out of the shadows one of the least virtuous pages of American history. Total surprise for us, who guiltily did not know the author and the book, but for which we must...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “…where your body announced […] its presence there, at the mercy of your laborious apprenticeship to the work of the world.” On October 15, 2024, Antonio Skármeta died. Many have seen “Il postino” starring Troisi, not as many have read that masterpiece of humanity and literature that is “Ardente paciencia”, translated into Italian as “Il postino di Neruda”. A few days before Skàrmeta’s death, excited by a chat about that title, we decided...
“I’m working on a new problem: finding the value of n such that n plus everything else in life makes you feel happy.” Reading Cameron is an experience that everyone should have at least once in their life. In his writings he manages to describe the void that accumulates inside man, like the rings of a tree. A void that cannot be filled in any way, a solitude for which we are always alone in...
“He looked at his watch, trying to hurry up, to find the strength to get up. It was no use. Useless.” Giorgio Bassani returns to dig into the well of memories, in an ideal continuation of his past works, with the themes and places dearest to him: Ferrara and its surroundings, the racial laws, the character of the Italians, his high social position in a changing world with the potential danger of communists ready to...
“I know well that the weaker we are, the more we do harm ourself.” Open this book with its aggressive cover, with a black and white gaze, that stares at you and you glimpse a little the insolence of an unkind and unsolicited judgment, against you, the reader. Here, then you start reading and you understand that all that can be wrong is perhaps human judgment. Someone would say “and if this means stealing, only...
“The good thing about a church is that it doesn’t really serve any purpose, except sometimes to instill fear.” A child with no name and no history knocks one night on the door of a house in an unknown town. It is immediately clear that it is not the first time he rings the door of someone he does not know, and also his need to find his father. The entire town will take charge...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “No more bones, no more muscles, no more veins: inside himself Octavio had autumn.” There are three pages, almost at the beginning of the book, three pages that introduce us to Octavio: it is practically impossible not to want to reread them at least twice. It is the painting of a destiny, nuanced and prophetic, like those paintings that the more you look at them the more hallucinatory details appear, faces hidden in...
