Campobasso: memory as disturbance, Paolo Di Paolo meets the audience of I'll tell you a book.

Campobasso: memory as disturbance, Paolo Di Paolo meets the audience of I'll tell you a book.

A walk along the banks of a large lake, memories that resurface, memories to be mended. Names, faces, lives only apparently forgotten that re-emerge on the body of water that shortens the distance between the present and the past.
In his Novel without humans, published by Feltrinelli, Paolo Di Paolo questions the climate disasters of our individual lives. The years without summer, the desires furious like tropical downpours, the shallows of hope, the frost that numbs and hides. And then the thaw, which finally brings it back to light.
Next guest of I'll tell you a book 2023, permanent laboratory on reading and narration promoted and created by the Municipality of Campobasso and the Italian Readers' Union, with the artistic and organizational direction of Brunella Santoli and the patronage of the Province of Campobasso, Di Paolo tackles a little explored theme: memory is disturbance.

There are those who remember too much, those who remember less, those who do not perceive the passage of time. We are all frozen between disjointed versions of the past. It's not easy to read life as it happens. In this novel he humans are in focus more than ever. Like Mauro Barbi, a historian by profession, who tries to fix the memories of others - the people he loves and has loved - by proposing his version of the facts. He tries to build a "shared memory" about himself. But what business is it? Perhaps a private Little Ice Age has something to do with it, a cooling process that depopulated its existence. Where are Fiore, Arno, old Cardolini, Meri, the Belgian girl from Madrid? Where is Anna? Where is everybody? Perhaps the lake to which he has dedicated years of study can give him the answers he is looking for. He sees, or rather imagines, the immense sheet of ice that covered him from shore to shore four and a half centuries earlier. The pale sun on a pile of dead birds. A very long winter that overwhelmed Europe with its polar winds, furious hailstorms and floods. A remote extreme season that made your teeth chatter, you lose hope, you go crazy. How did he get out? How do you get out of it? Images of the past always deceive us. Barbi tries to return to the present, with all the anxiety and effort that simple gestures require. One in particular could change everything.

THEmeeting with the author is scheduled for Monday 6 November, at 18.30 pm in the Circolo Sannitico of Campobasso. The writer will dialogue with him Paolo Massari.
In the morning of on Monday 6 November, Paolo Di Paolo will meet middle school students from Campobasso to talk about his book Find a job and then be a writer, published by Rizzoli, a funny story of a passion that challenges prejudices and even common sense. Stefania di Mella, editor of the book, will participate in the meeting.
Friday 17 November, at 18.30pm in the Constitution Hall in Campobasso, I'll tell you about a book will celebrate the publication in the Rizzoli Bur series of Foreign Bodies, the first novel by the Molise writer Pier Paolo Giannubilo which after fifteen years returns to bookstores in a new version, revised in language and structure and expanded with an unpublished final chapter. The preface to the book is signed by the writer Mirko Zilahy, author of internationally successful novels.

MEETINGS WITH THE AUTHOR

Monday 6 November at 18.30pm– Samnite Circle – Campobasso

ROMANZO WITHOUT HUMANI - Ed. Feltrinelli, meeting with PAOLO DI PAOLO in dialogue with PAOLO MASSARI
A man walks along the shore of a large German lake. He left suddenly, after having caused a series of "emotional incidents", as he himself defines them. He fell back into the lives of people he hadn't seen for a long time. He responded to emails that had remained there for fifteen years, asking inappropriate questions. He tried to mend broken threads. Mauro Barbi, a historian by profession, tries to fix the memories of others - the people he loves and has loved - by proposing his version of the facts. He tries to build a "shared memory" about himself. But what business is it? Perhaps a private Little Ice Age has something to do with it, a cooling process that depopulated its existence. Where are Fiore, Arno, old Cardolini, Meri, the Belgian girl from Madrid? Where is Anna? Where is everybody? Perhaps the lake to which he has dedicated years of study can give him the answers he is looking for. He sees, or rather imagines, the immense sheet of ice that covered him from shore to shore four and a half centuries earlier. The pale sun on a pile of dead birds. A very long winter that overwhelmed Europe with its polar winds, furious hailstorms and floods. A remote extreme season that made your teeth chatter, you lose hope, you go crazy. How did he get out? How do you get out of it? Images of the past always deceive us. Barbi tries to return to the present, with all the anxiety and effort that simple gestures require. One in particular could change everything. In his Novel without humans, where humans are in focus more than ever, Paolo Di Paolo questions the climate disasters of our individual lives. The years without summer, the desires furious like tropical downpours, the shallows of hope, the frost that numbs and hides. And then the thaw, which finally brings it back to light.
What do others remember about us? “Paolo Di Paolo addresses a little-explored theme: memory is disturbance. There are those who remember too much, those who remember less, those who do not perceive the passage of time. We are all frozen between disjointed versions of the past. It's not easy to read life as it happens. A magnificent and daring novel.” André Aciman

PAOLO DI PAOLO was born in 1983 in Rome. He has published the novels Tell me the night I was born (2008), Where you were all (2011; Mondello Prize and Super Vittorini Prize), Send me a lot of life (2013; Strega Prize finalist), A story almost only about love (2016) , Far from eyes (2019) Viareggio-Rèpaci Award, all in the Feltrinelli catalog and translated into several European languages. Many of his books were born from dialogues: with Antonio Debenedetti, Dacia Maraini, Raffaele La Capria, Antonio Tabucchi, for whom he edited Viaggi e altri viaggio (Feltrinelli, 2010), and Nanni Moretti. He is the author of texts for children, including The Flying Cow (2014; finalist of the Premio Strega Ragazze e Ragazzi) and I Classici amici di scuola (Feltrinelli, 2021), and for the theatre. He writes for “la Repubblica” and for “L'Espresso”.