From today in French bookstores comes ‘Dépouillée’, a translation of the collection of short stories ‘Disadorna and other stories’ by Dario Franceschini, which appeared in Italy for ‘La nave di Teseo’. It is the Italian publisher himself to point this out, recalling how the title appears for the types of Gallimard, in the prestigious L’arpenteur collection, in the translation by Chantal Moiroud.
Presenting the volume, the French publisher – who has already published previous works by Franceschini explains that “rarefied and surreal atmospheres are the background to Disadorna’s tales” and underlines the “light and ironic touch that distinguishes the magical realism of the Po Valley” of the writer-politician.
In the stories, Gallimard observes, “we meet men stunned in front of the vastness of the sea, we get lost in the fog that envelops the plain, we find distant memories and loves, we see the stories through the eyes of the protagonists. Without losing a subtle smile of tenderness or irony. , Franceschini observes the ordinary world with a sidelong, decentralized look. A few words are enough to suggest a lot, his art is that of unadorned magic. Many of Unadorn’s stories focus on the most fragile and probably the richest ages of life: the childhood and old age. Perhaps, the author tells us, it is precisely in the simplest things in life that happiness is hidden “.
In addition to his political career, Franceschini has joined the literary career with increasing frequency: the current Minister of Cultural Heritage published in 2006 his first novel ‘In the veins that silver water’, with which he won the Premier Roman in France. of Chambery and, in Italy, the Opera Prima Città di Penne Prize and the Bacchelli Prize. He then published ‘The sudden madness of Ignazio Rando’, from which a play of the same name was taken, ‘Daccapo’ and ‘Mestieri immateriali by Sebastiano Delgado’.
Commenting on the appearance of Disadorna in France, Elisabetta Sgarbi, publisher of ‘La nave di Teseo’ recalls how Gallimard in the L’Arpenteur series “continues with constancy to publish the narrative work of Dario Franceschini, starting from his beautiful debut. Dario’s fortune in France, which began when he was less in the spotlight of national politics, and continued in parallel with his activity as a Member of Parliament and Minister, testifies, once again, if it were ever needed, that we are talking about a true writer, with a his own voice, his own style, in the wake of the great literature of the Po Valley. “