the interview
twelve o’clock, April 14, 2021 – 6:04 pm
With “The city of the living” the writer from Bari wins the Presidia prize for the book named after his deceased friend
of Francesco Mazzotta
Six years later “The ferocity “, winner of the Strega and Mondello awards, Nicola Lagioia had returned to questioning the responsibility and distortions of contemporary society with “The city of the living”, once again for Einaudi. The novel, published in 2020, the other evening won the Alessandro Leogrande Award dedicated to investigative journalism, a genre of which the writer from Taranto (to whom the award is named) was considered one of the most brilliant and lucid exponents. In that groove, but to investigate the deepest origins of evil, it is born “The city of the living”, in which the writer from Bari reconstructs the heinous murder of Luca Varani in a literary key. Lagioia, which received 31 votes out of 75 from the readers of the book’s Presidia, cannot mask the emotion for this recognition that comes in the name of a friend who passed away in 2017, at the age of forty. «The effect – he says – is truly alienating. If I had told Alessandro five years ago that I was going to win an award named after him, we would have had a laugh and we would have gone for a beer. Thinking of him every time is touching, but also very painful. Time will heal this wound. But I miss everything about Alessandro: the writer, the intellectual, the friend ».
How long have you known each other?
“We dated for seventeen years. The first meeting took place thanks to Goffredo Fofi: he had enrolled us both for the magazine The stranger, in Rome. We were appointed deputy directors. Alessandro had a more important role than mine, because he did a real editorial job ».
When did you meet, what happened?
“We liked each other right away. We had two fonts that fit together well. The fact that we were both from Puglia made us particularly similar. We started dating outside of work. I remember a summer in Puglia, in Castellaneta Marina. We have often crossed paths with our professional activities. When it came out “The bad lives “ of Alessandro, it was I, with another Apulian off-site, Mario Desiati, who presented him in the Fandango space in Rome. But, above all, with Alessandro we saved the Turin Book Fair ».
Really?
“When I was called to run him, I phoned him to tell him I wanted him by my side. It was a wonderful year. I remember a meeting on political issues between him and Sepulveda. Difficult to accept that there are no longer both. Then I got him involved in an anthology on football, a common passion. For Minimum Fax it came out “Every damn Sunday“. Instead, he called me to write about Page 99, of which he had become responsible for the “long-forms”. And then there are countless times that our paths have crossed at Radio Tre, thanks to Marino Sinibaldi ».
Two years ago the Puglia Region announced the establishment with the Book Fair of a Leogrande Award dedicated to the best literary reportage. What happened to that idea?
“It had to be a coordinated initiative with the Leogrande Prize of Presidia, then Covid blew everything up”.
When it comes to literary journalism everyone thinks of “In cold blood“By Truman Capote and”Gomorrah“By Saviano.
“In reality in Italy there are exemplary cases of very precedents: “Christ stopped at Eboli” by Carlo Levi, “If this is a man” by Primo Levi, some works by Sciascia. But among the foreign authors I could mention Kapuscinski, to whom an award won by Alessandro with “The shipwreck”».
Where is the boundary between investigation and narrative?
“I don’t think it exists. “The city of the living” it is a literary work of non-fiction, the story of a real fact reorganized in a dramaturgical way. You can’t change the facts, but your perception can change. Literature tries to illuminate corners of reality that other forms of narration do not reach ».
“The city of the living” would Alessandro have liked it?
“I’ve never asked myself that. When I think of Alessandro I would like to go out with him at least for one more time. I would have so many things to ask him that we wouldn’t have time to talk about my book. I hope to meet the parents next summer. The Presidia of the book would like to organize an award ceremony in attendance, in Taranto ».
Will you return to work on this genre?
«“The city of the living” it distracted me from the self which, inevitably, is present in fictional novels. I don’t know if I will carry this posture with me. I only know that it was a liberating act ».
April 14, 2021 | 18:04
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