“I grew up with my mother, not with my father.” Finalist of the XXVI edition of the Edoardo Kihlgren Opera Prima Literary Prize, the text is a family story, in which the author goes fishing in the lake of his dearest memories, what he remembers and what he thought he didn’t remember, to tell the story of his life up to now, and the internal dynamics between his parents and then those with his brothers...
“In Milan everything plays and everyone plays something.” A nice and in its own way captivating idea, that of the author to describe his city, Milan, through the five senses that man has: a clear perception of how the city is felt and envelops each person, even before it can be thought; an observation so true in a city where everyone is passing through life. In fact, as an old adage says, Milan is for...
“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...
“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...
“He loved his mother deeply, but he was ashamed to show it. That’s why he was rebellious and disobedient.” We took a risk: deciding to read a book based on the cover, of which we had a superficial knowledge of the author. When we then saw that it was a book of short stories, not our favorite genre, we understood that the risk was complete. Yet, as often happens with texts with which we start...
“At some point it is easier to go to war than to return home.” Attention please. We are faced with a true narrative text, as has not happened to us for a long time, in which the story narrated, modern in many of its aspects, is combined with a dusty style (in a positive sense) typical of quality writing after the Second World War. As we like to specify, the text will last for years,...
“Democracy is exercised not only at the time of elections, but also through continuous confrontation between the majority and the opposition.” This is a book with a clear vision, written by one of the most well-known economists on the Italian landscape, and appreciated internationally. The text is divided into two parts, the first one in which Cottarelli describes his eight-month experience as senator of the republic, and the second one in which he tells the...
“I wonder how many of us live with unfounded fears that perhaps we have unconsciously grown fond of.” If the title of the book is true, then it is equally true that it is books like this that transform prisons into peninsulas. Land languages that come to light at low tide and facilitate communication between islanders and mainland inhabitants. The more texts like these are written and read, the more the strip of land will...
“They found his heart intact because his will was pure.” We find ourselves in front of the book with which we decided to open the third edition of the “June of books – 2024” exhibition in Milan, and which we had the opportunity to read and analyze with the writer himself in great detail. The young author Ceccherini, after having spoken about the monster of Florence in his first book, in this second work recounts...
