Time.news – “The book follows a classic pattern. The protagonist is a great butchered prince. They took away his mother, his brother has his place. It is a story no different from that of Ulysses returning to Ithaca”. The comparison between Prince Harry and Homer’s hero comes from the literary critic Arnaldo Colasanti, who at Time.news also underlines the editorial background of an announced success.
“The greatest ghostwriter around wrote it – continues Colasanti referring to it JR Moehringer, writer and Pulitzer Prize winner -. It is the same person who wrote the biography of Andrè Agassi, also in that case we had great literary success because we were faced with a great tennis player, who became such because he was massacred by his father. So we are facing a great story, written by a great ghostwriter”.
“In addition, of course, there is the whole theme of the fight between two brothers – he continues -, the ‘loser’ and the lucky one, as well as the theme of the family and the queen, meaning Lady Diana and the role they played for Harry both his mother and his loss. It is obvious that it is interesting – concludes Colasanti – it follows a classic pattern. It’s marketing.”
And, just like Ulysses or Agassi, the Duke of Sussex also has a people on his side. That of the readers, who awarded his book ‘The Spare’ with 250,000 copies purchased in Italy in three days. A resounding success, if we consider that the best-selling book in our country in 2022, ‘Tearmaker’ by Erin Doom, saw 450,000 copies come out of bookstores in an entire year.
Even two books considered literary cases, ‘Cambiare l’acqua ai fiori’ by Valerie Perrin and ‘The Lions of Sicily’ by Stefania Auci, the best sellers in 2020 and 2019 respectively, both reached 300 thousand copies in one year. And who knows what Elena Ferrante might be thinking who, in 2018, was considered the undisputed best seller with 234,000 copies sold.
Andrea Camilleri defends himself, whose posthumous book ‘Riccardino’ reached 300,000 copies from July to September. Of course, with over thirty million copies sold in Italy and more than a hundred worldwide among all of his works, Harry is still far from the goals of the Sicilian writer. At least for now.