The Ukrainian author who arrived directly from Kiev and the American crime writer are protagonists at the literary festival. Jhumpa Lahiri receives the Story of a novel award
An appeal to intellectuals from all over the world, even to Russians not aligned with propaganda, to do everything possible to stop the war. In Pordenonelegge the present knocks hard and this time has the face and voice of Alexei Nikitin. The Ukrainian writer came here from Kiev to bear his testimony and talk about his novel,
Bat Amy
– in Italian will be In front of the fire – released at home in 2021 and being translated by us (Voland will publish it in 2024, which has two other titles by Nikitin in the catalog, promptof 2013, and Victory Park2019). In Bat Amy tells a family story for him, that of the Ukrainian boxer Ilja Goldinov, and goes back to the Thirties and then to the Second World War.
But the war one immediately thinks about, talking to Nikitin, is today’s one: For me it began on the evening of February 24 with a rocket that fell a few meters from my house – he says, showing the photos on his cell phone -, people at first passed by and did not even understand what that piece of metal was. From there, he explains, a process started so fast that only now we can really understand. A daily struggle, which prevents him from writing why literature wants concentration and instead the head goes to the news from the front. He does not believe in diplomacy: The only solution is that Russia withdraws its troops: life is risked in the occupied territories, every right denied.
Nikitin is not the only one to bring the Ukrainian theme to Pordenone: this year in the logo of the festival, which closes its 23 edition on 18 September, there is an ear that deliberately refers to Ukrainian wheat. Actuality and recent past: On the doorstep of history has been the mantra of these days repeated by the artistic director Gian Mario Villalta, curator of the festival with Alberto Garlini and Valentina Gasparet. To get to Italy (after here I will also be in Bologna) Nikitin waited a long time for a visa: expatriation freely not granted to male citizens between 18 and 60 years and the requests are dozens every day. Ever thought of leaving Kiev? No, I always thought the Russians would never occupy it. Maybe I was optimistic: in April, when the army withdrew, we realized how big it was. What the small Ukrainian armed forces have done is miraculous. Now what is in Putin’s head, he says, is difficult to predict, because the Russian leader does not see reality adequately: We fight, we can’t do anything else.
Nikitin a writer of its own kind: physicist, also worked in Chernobyl. He speaks and writes in Russian, like so many in Ukraine: Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar, Yiddish and Polish coexist in the country: now many perceive Russian as the language of the enemy, and they will gradually abandon it, inevitable. A composite land but undoubtedly European, historically and culturally. In Bat Amy tells the story of a couple: To write it I wanted to wait for the KGB archives to be declassified in 2011: I wanted to have access to the documents of the time. Studying them, I collected significant details: the world conflict, for example, which we had to call the “great patriotic war”, is simply defined “German-Soviet war” by Soviet police officers.
Documents, reality at the basis of the narrative: September 17 in Pordenone it was also the day of Jeffery Deaver, the prolific American thriller wizardfresh author de The black map (Rizzoli). He too tells of having worked for a long time, eight months, before tackling the drafting of the novel: the interlocking of the plot and the study of the genesis and functioning of large corporations, of the legal aspects that regulate the responsibilities of big company. He, with a past as a lawyer accustomed to investigating the folds of Wall Street, revealed that he had to study a lot. Then, the essential ingredients of a good thriller are three: crime, the soap opera element – that is, the sphere of personal and family relationships – and what Deaver calls geopolitical: A broader theme, which goes beyond the plot: environment, privacy put at risk …. A lot of research, but also the luck of an innate propensity to give birth to ideas, stories, characters: as if you had a supermarket of ideas in your mind, the difficulty lies in choosing the right ones, which will interest readers. The greatest fear for him who plays with fear, one day, stop being passionate, end up in the clich: I wake up every day scared at the idea of disappointing my readers, he confesses. Which characters do you enjoy creating the most? The bads. They have to be well-rounded, convincing, otherwise they won’t hold up. A bad guy right? Putin, I would ascribe him to the category of supervillains. But, and I only say this as a normal person reading the news, I suspect that despite his “dark side” he is not crazy. If he is given the opportunity to step back without losing face, I think he will try to take it.
To welcome the authors – on September 17 among the many also Jhumpa Lahiri who came to collect the History prize in a novel – the crowd of the festival, rediscovered after two years of pandemic, which yesterday, when the sun decided to show itself, came down to fill the streets of a Pordenone colored again yellow, among ears, flags and shop windows. Sunday 18th September, the grand finale.
At the end of the year. New book for de Giovanni: But now I want to slow down
He wants to slow down but certainly not with writing, which doesn’t cost him any effort. Maurizio de Giovanni was also there in Pordenonelegge, two months after the heart attack that hit him on 12 July, thinner but smiling and fit again. It is full of projects, starting with the new novel in the series by Commissioner Ricciardi, published by Einaudi. path and will be released at the end of 2022, the writer announced to Ansa. It will be set 5 years later The cry of the dawnthen in ’39. path by Carlos Gardel a tango of regret, of great beauty. He says: “Little road that one day saw us pass together happy, now you only find me who came to say goodbye”. In Pordenonelegge de Giovanni arrived with A flight to Sara (Rizzoli), the most recent book in the series dedicated to the former policewoman Sara Morozzi. For her too, the writer is already thinking about the next title, but he says he wants to slow down the pace a bit, not so much of the writing but of the tours. My priorities don’t change, I just realized I’m not as strong as I thought I was.
September 17, 2022 (change September 17, 2022 | 21:24)
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