Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Bringing It All Back Home A Novel by Nicola Lagioia Bringing It All Back Home: A Novel by Nicola Lagioia. Prospero Fest returns to Monopoli from June 12th to 18th. For the 2021 summer edition, which makes up for the 2020 edition that was suspended a few days before its start due to the pandemic, Prospero Fest boasts the collaboration of Nicola Lagioia, Director of the Turin International Book Fair who edited the section of “Le stagioni di Prospero “. The festival, entirely financed by the Municipality of Monopoli, was presented during a press conference in the presence of the Mayor of Monopoli, Angelo Annese, the Councillor for Culture, Rosanna Perricci, the Councillor for Tourism, Cristian Iaia, the Director of General Affairs and Local Development of the Municipality of Monopoli, Dr. Pietro D’Amico, and the Director of the Civic Library, Dr. Marianna Capozza. With two events a day, one at the “Prospero Rendella” Civic Library and the other at Piazza Palmieri, held in the presence of the public, in compliance with anti-Covid-19 measures and with restricted access, also available for streaming. Admission is free upon reservation (access without booking will be guaranteed only in the event of availability). All the events will be introduced by Journalist, Sergio Rizzo. At the opening event on Saturday June 12th at 7 p.m. in the Rendella Library, Lawyer Francesco De Jaco will conduct the event with Diana Nicolazzo for the presentation of the novel “Il templare di Otranto. Il Mosaico” and “Il templare di Otranto. Outremer” (joined by Pierluigi del Giudice). In the evening at 9.00 p.m., after the institutional greetings of the Regional Councillor of Culture and Tourism Massimo Bray and the Mayor of Monopoli Angelo Annese, in Piazza Palmieri is scheduled the presentation of Paolo Crepet’s latest book entitled “Beyond the Storm. Come torneremo a stare insieme”, panelled by Alberto Maiale. Sunday June 13th at 7.00 pm at Rendella Library, the first event with “Le Stagioni di Prospero” with Mario Desiati and his lecture on “Identità spatriate: il desiderio dell’altrove”. Following this, at 9.00 pm in Piazza Palmieri, Alessandra Dalena talks with the journalist Tiziana Ferrario about the presentation of her latest book entitled “Uomini, è ora di giocare senza falli!”. On Monday June 14th at 7 p.m. at Rendella Library, Emanuele Arciuli will present his book “La bellezza della nuova musica” (panelled by Alceste Ayroldi); at 9 p.m. in Piazza Palmieri an event, curated by Michele Suma, entitled “Tra la parola e l’immagine, semplicemente amore” with Federico Moccia. On Tuesday June 15th at 7 p.m. at Rendella Civic Library, Gianluca Capochiani panels the event with Antonio Moschetta to present his latest book “Ci vuole fegato” (It takes guts); at 9 p.m. in Piazza Palmieri, Magistrate Grazia Errede hosts an event presenting Luciano Garofano’s book “La falsa giustizia. The genesis of judicial errors and how to prevent them”. On Wednesday June 16th at 6 p.m., at Rendella Civic Library the presentation of Michele Carone’s first book “I fiori del male” (moderator: Felice Stama) will be held. Later in the evening, at 7.30 p.m., in Piazza Palmieri stages journalist Massimo Giletti in a function chaired by journalists Giancarlo Fiume (Editor-in-Chief of TgR Puglia) and Gianni Tanzariello (Editor of Canale 7) on the subject of “Investigative TV. The case of Non è L’Arena”. On Thursday June 17th, two events of “Le Stagioni di Prospero” are scheduled: Antonella Lattanzi will be the guest at 7.00 p.m. in the Library with a meeting on the theme “On the novel: between chronicle and fiction”; at 9.00 p.m. in Piazza Palmieri Chiara Valerio gives a lecture entitled “Invisible and present. Where is mathematics every day?”. On Friday June 18th at 7.00 p.m. the Rendella Library will host another event of “Le Stagioni di Prospero”: “Anime in pena. Cosa ci ha insegnato il vecchio Philip Marlowe” (Souls in pain. What old Philip Marlowe taught us) by Alessandro Robecchi; at 8.45 p.m. in Piazza Palmieri there will be a special award ceremony for Lorena Carbonara, winner of the Special Italian Women Award of the XVI National Literary Competition Mother Tongue dedicated to migrant women (or women of foreign origin) living in Italy or Italian women with the story “Ferma Zitella”. This will be followed at 9 p.m. by the presentation of Nicola Lagioia’s latest book “La città dei vivi” (hosted by Stefania Del Giglio). “Postponed a few days before the start because of the pandemic, Prospero Fest returns to Monopoli at a different period than the first two editions, which were very successful and are part of the summer events of the City of Monopoli. After succeeding in winning the challenge of bringing cultural events in the middle of the autumn period, it comes back with a new look made of wider spaces, spacing and also streaming diffusion. From June 12th to 18th 2021 the “Prospero Rendella” Civic Library and Piazza Palmiere “Hosting two daily events with nationally renowned authors. We wanted to be there to give you a week of reflection and light-heartedness,” says the Mayor of Monopoli Angelo Annese. “We made a virtue of necessity and were forced to postpone the 2020 edition of Prospero Fest due to the worsened pandemic, we took this opportunity to move the events already scheduled for summer, so that Monopoli will once again host authors and journalists on a journey full of emotions. We will do so in compliance with the anti-contagion rules, exploiting new technologies and even reaching the homes of those who cannot be physically present. I’d like to remember the event with “Le stagioni di Prospero” by Nicola Lagioia and the presence of authors such as Paolo Crepet and Federico Moccia and the participation of Luciano Garofano, Massimo Giletti and Tiziana Ferrario. It will be a week in which we will address a wide range of topics, from current affairs to fiction, with ample space dedicated to the public’s participation,” emphasises Culture Councillor Rosanna Perricci. “Moving the edition scheduled for last November to June allows us to bring to the eve of summer an event that in 2018 and 2019 recorded significant numbers in November. It is our first major summer event and the line-up of authors, writers and journalists we will be hosting for seven days will elevate the cultural offer of this city and represent a further element that will act as a driving force for tourism, which has been severely limited by the pandemic over the last year,” says Tourism Councillor Cristian Iaia. Italophile Book Reviews. Reviews of books set in Italy or about Italy. Books for Italophiles. Thursday, May 22, 2014. Bringing It All Back Home by Nicola Lagioia. The city is Bari in southern Italy, the time, the 1980s. The era of ideologies has been killed off—the streets are full of optimism; commercial television channels are recalibrating people’s desires and aspirations; “something akin to a storm front of madness” is running through Italy’s economy. The times are moving fast, and the glow of so much burned money lingers on. And under those ashes lies still more money, smoldering with the desire to be passed from hand to hand. And yet, as the three boys tackle life’s challenges, it becomes clear that things are not so simple. Despite their families’ evermore luxurious homes, despite the success of their fathers (a businessman obsessed with social climbing, a famous lawyer, and a talented ex-mechanic who has borrowed money from the wrong people), despite their mothers— or stepmothers—who wear out designer heels walking from one shop window to the next, the radar behind these adolescents’ eyes detects unexpected vibrations. Nicola Lagioia has written a mature, angry coming-of-age novel. The writing is taut, perceptive, and precise, reaching sparkling heights in a story of friendship, betrayal, and generational conflict, which ultimately takes us to the beginnings of our own time in history, and to the eternal adolescence of a country that is growing old without ever having grown up. Here's a view of the 1980s from newscasters at the end of 1989, also with prescient views of the decades to come: A look at authors, movies, workshops and discussions coming up at Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. Abu Dhabi International Book Fair returns on Wednesday for its 26th edition, with its usual mix of books, excited publishers, hopeful booksellers, international authors and industry experts. Run by the Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority, this year’s event spotlights Italy as the country of honour, featuring some of the most famous contemporary Italian authors. With a comprehensive cultural and professional programme, creative workshops for children and even a cookery strand, there truly is something for everyone. A taste of Italy. With the special focus of this year’s fair on Italy, it comes as no surprise that some of the biggest names in Italian publishing will be in the capital. They don’t come much bigger than guest of honour Donato Carrisi, the country’s best-selling thriller writer in translation. Four books of his grimy Italian noir have been translated into English – the latest, The Hunter of the Dark , had him compared to Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo. Perhaps a little less easy to define is Nicola Lagioia, who last year won Italy’s top literary award, the Strega Prize, for Ferocity . His latest translation into English, Bringing It All Back Home , was a grab-​bag of influen​ces and took in plenty of enjoy​able 1980s touchstones including Michael Jackson and the Nasa space-shuttle programme. Another Strega prize winner coming to Abu Dhabi is Melania Mazzucco, who won in 2003 for Vita , the brilliant story of young Italian immigrants who move to New York. Subsequently translated into English, it kick-started a fruitful literary career. Fantasy and thrillers. Fellow Italian Valerio Massimo Manfredi is at the other end of his career, after selling more than 12 million art- and history-laden thrillers. English speakers will recognise his work from the film adaptation The Last Legion , a Roman epic starring Colin Firth and Ben Kingsley that had its world premiere in Abu Dhabi in 2007. Licia Troisi is a best-selling Italian fantasy author, whose Chronicles of the Overworld series was recently translated into English. Regional authors. Writers from the Arab world are also well represented. Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Sudanese writer Hammour Ziada’s novel The Longing of the Dervish was translated into English last year. He is joined by Moroccan novelist Anis Arrafai – who took part in Ipaf’s prestigious Nadwa writing workshop. The 2010 Ipaf chairman, Taleb Al Refal, will also be talking about his humanitarian-tinged writing. Fadia Ahmed Al Faqir arrives at the fair as one of the most widely read Jordanian writers. Her five novels – with brilliantly drawn snapshots of Jordanian life – earned her a worldwide readership. And it will be interesting to hear what Mohammed Khan – one of the most famous Arab film directors – has to say about the indigenous film industry. Creativity Corner. This strand of the fair, with workshops, events and performances, runs across five disciplines: arts and crafts, theatre, inner peace, science and smart learning. In the theatre strand, Italian company Circus Dimidimitri will perform acrobatics and create a “human orchestra”. There’s also the chance to go on an interactive musical journey in Pathways and learn about the power of reading in The Arabic Alphabet: A Play . Inner Peace. As the name suggests, the Inner Peace section focuses on how we can best look after ourselves. Dutch actress Adda van Zanden will explore how voice and breath coaching can unlock communication skills, while Hanns Joachim Ries will show how classical piano can be an effective meditation aid. Storytelling and science. The Art and Craft zone, run by London’s Art at Kite Studios, will focus on ways in which cardboard, wood, plastics, metals and fabrics can be intriguing tools for storytelling. Abu Dhabi’s Applied Technology High School and Secondary Technical School will run the Smart Learning strand, with a wide-ranging programme of workshops that take in robotics, solar energy and hydrogen-fuel technology. (Any session that features Lego gets our vote.) Finally, European company Nutty Scientists bring hovercraft, balloon-powered cars and, er, slime to enthral children up to 12 years old with mad science. Black Box Cinema. The fair also has a short-film strand featuring 18 films. The standout is Ave Maria by British-​Palestinian director Basil Khalil – a 15-minute comedy following a Jewish settler family forced to seek the help of a group of nuns when their car breaks down besides a remote convent. The film was nominated for an Oscar this year in the Best Live Action Short category. There are also four films from UAE-based filmmakers: Omar Adam’s Five is a heartbreaking essay on mortality, which won the Egyptian filmmaker the top prize at Arab Film Studios Awards last year. Made of Clay, by Emirati Fayssal bin Sahli, looks at a boy’s dream to be a stop- motion artist, while Cross the Line, from Khaled bin Shahli, takes on similar themes, as a young cosplay designer tries to break away from his controlling father. Emirati Amena Al Nowais’s Omnia is a harrowing documentary about female genital mutilation that won several awards, including Best Picture at last year’s Arab Film Studio Documentary competition. On the business side. Abu Dhabi International Book Fair coaxes plenty of authors to the nation’s capital. But it is also a place for publishing-​industry professionals from around the world to discuss new books, developments, technologies and, perhaps, most importantly, the intricacies of the Middle East market and translation scene. With the UAE’s Year of Reading initiative underpinning the fair, it’s interesting to note that Nathan Hull, chief business development officer at Mofibo, will be one of the most high-profile guests. Mofibo, after all, is a huge e-book and audiobook subscription service – much like a Spotify for books. Sticking with technology, Ala’ Alsallal from Jamalon will talk about working for the largest online bookstore in the Middle East, while Clint Beharry from the Harmony Institute will discuss how technology can help stories change the world. Turning to more traditional forms of communication, Alexandra Buchler, from Literature Across Frontiers, will talk about translating Arabic novels into English, as will Chip Rossetti, managing editor of the Library of Arabic Literature book series. The fair’s Italian focus continues in the professional programme, with guest of honour Maria Luisa Borsarelli discussing publisher De Agostini’s wide-ranging global business, and her role as international rights manager. Illustrator’s Corner. Celebrating the work of cartoonists, graphic designers and artists, this section of the fair takes in everything from how to draw the human form to manga. Dubai-based David Macedo will talk about the process of creating a children’s book starting from the initial sketches all the way through to the finished product. His current project is a series of books, UAE, My Homeland , about an Emirati child. German manga artist Inga Steinmetz will host a workshop to teach people how to draw in this distinctive Japanese comic-book style. Award-winning Italian author/artist Alessandro Sanna will showcase how “live painting” works, with the use of an iPad and projections. There will also be a fascinating discussion by Nassma Al Bahrani, production manager of Cartoon Network Studios Arabia, on how artwork is produced for animation. New mysteries: Connelly's Harry Bosch is back, and 'Mrs. Parrish' is in peril. Michael Connelly on the opioid epidemic, an inner-city Sherlock Holmes, bed-jumping among the rich, and Italian corruption: crime has infinite permutations. Fortunately, mystery novelist Charles Finch is on the scene. Two Kinds of Truth. By Michael Connelly. Little, Brown, 402 pp. Boy. Michael Connelly has been so ubiquitous this year — introducing a new lead character in the excellent The Late Show in July, executive- producing the screen adaptation Bosch for Amazon — that you might have expected some slight slackening in his control of his signature series featuring retired LAPD detective Harry Bosch. You’d be wrong. Two Kinds of Truth is vintage Connelly, with Harry, now working freelance for the San Fernando, Calif., police, infiltrating an opioid ring and reckoning with a killer he long ago put behind bars. Connelly went through a weak period recently, especially in the later Mickey Haller books, but his immaculate plotting and gift for bringing procedural intricacies to life now seem as strong as ever. One can tire of his vision of life — a reflexive, undemanding noir — while freely conceding that he writes the best detective novels around. The Last Mrs. Parrish. By Liv Constantine. This stilted, sometimes silly, but utterly irresistible novel is about a young woman named Amber Patterson, newly arrived in an ultra-rich town on Long Island Sound and ready to ascend into its firmament by whatever means she has to use. She decides to play mousy friend and aide-de-camp to Daphne Parrish, the beautiful and glamorous wife of Jackson Parrish — except when Daphne happens to be away, when Amber turns seductress. Liv Constantine is the pseudonym of a pair of sisters who “spend hours plotting via Skype,” and those hours have paid off. The Last Mrs. Parrish pivots on an enormous and satisfying twist, forcing Amber to rejigger her schemes, and Daphne and Jackson to wonder exactly what their new acquaintance's past might contain. The writing ranges from workmanlike to wondrously bad, but it doesn’t matter at all since the pages keep flying, flying, flying by. Righteous. Mulholland, 336 pp. One of last year’s most exciting debuts was IQ , about a cryptic, brilliantly observant consulting detective named Isaiah Quintabe (aka IQ), working small cases in the gang-dominated streets of East Long Beach, Calif. His pattering sidekick was Dodson — rhymes with Watson, if you like. Righteous , its sequel, is a classic second book in many ways, overfull and undercooked. The book’s shaggy plotline sends the duo to confront triads and loan sharks in Las Vegas, a setting that leaves Ide too far afield of the community he evoked so superbly in IQ , and IQ himself in circumstances that require action, not his signature brainwork. As a result, his survival of the events of Righteous is barely credible — but also, given Ide’s sense of humor, his effervescent dialogue, and his knack for moments of emotion, all still present here, terrific news for readers. Ferocity. By Nicola Lagioia. Clara Salvemini, the beautiful scion of a powerful family in the Italian city of Bari, commits suicide, throwing herself from the roof of a multi-level parking lot. That’s the story, anyhow — only her half-brother Michele, to whom everyone but Clara has been mostly unkind, doubts it. Nicola Lagioia’s rich, dense, difficult novel, a sensation in his home country and now capably translated by Antony Shugaar, is a family saga, with numerous strands crossing numerous time periods. It darts back and forth between the pretentious and profound, sometimes in a single sentence. But at least from these shores, its atmosphere of awful unease seems to define something about contemporary Italy, a certain darkness and anger. In one scene flashing back to when he's 12, Michele, who anchors the book’s emotions, “senses, he knows,” without seeing why, that he and Clara are in trouble. Readers who survive Lagioia’s occasional opacity and floridity will understand that tragic sensation with a rawness few books offer. Greed, Italian Style: on Nicola Lagioia’s Ferocity by Kristen Martin. In the opening scene of Nicola Lagioia’s novel Ferocity (Europa Editions), we zoom in on a hyper-literary description of singed moths: “As they approached the artificial lights, the golden angle of their flight was shattered. Their movements became an obsessive circular dance that only death could interrupt. A nasty black heap of insects lay on the veranda of the first of these residences.” What might initially seem to be a stylistic embellishment that has little to do with the actual plot—a distraction from the naked, bloody woman who walks past those floodlights and onto the highway between Bari and Taranto—turns out to be an important symbol of how humans encroach disastrously on each other and the natural environment. The naked, bloody woman who struts out into the night is Clara Salvemini. Her last name means something in Puglia, the heel of Italy’s boot—she was the first-born daughter of Vittorio Salvemini, a powerful builder and real-estate developer from Bari, seen as a “master of the city.” Her body is found at the foot of a parking garage, and her death is ruled a suicide. The book’s plot is driven by the quest to uncover the truth. In part, it’s the saga of the Salvemini family, a portrait of a patriarch’s greed and its consequences. One might expect an Italian novel that concerns itself with corruption to delve into organized crime. Ferocity , instead, focuses on the seemingly more benign world of white-collar extortion, centering on Vittorio Salvemini’s construction business and his understanding “that behind the zoning plans there was legislation, and behind that… there was nothing but an initial act of arbitrary personal will.” The mob leaves bodies in its wake, but the victims of this kind of criminality are not immediately visible. When someone like Vittorio greases palms or threatens blackmail to get people to look the other way as he flouts regulations and restrictions, people don’t usually end up dead. Lagioia—a celebrated contemporary literary novelist in Italy—knows the Mezzogiorno well. He was born in Bari in 1973, and his 2009 novel Riportando tutto a casa (Bringing Everything Back Home) follows three teenage boys whose fathers get rich in the economic boom of the 1980s. Translated by Anthony Shugaar, Ferocity won the Strega prize, Italy’s most prestigious literary award for fiction, and marks Lagioia’s English- language debut. It’s a smart choice for his introduction to an Anglophone audience, since it isn’t hard to envision this book in the context of the American South, or in any other part of the globe where unrestrained capitalism has led to environmental disaster. Comparisons to “Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom , filtered through the fierce Mediterranean vision of Elena Ferrante,” don’t do justice to how Ferocity renders moral and political corruption’s rampant and universal prevalence. The white collar crime at the center of the story is “the Porto Allegro affair.” Porto Allegro is a tourist complex Vittorio is constructing on the Gargano coast; it has drawn the ire of environmental activists for neglecting zoning restrictions regarding protected coastal pines. Via the kaleidoscope of perspectives, we learn who pays for the corruption that pads the pockets of Puglia’s most powerful: devastation is wreaked on the environment (plovers drop from the sky after drinking from lead-infested waters near the tourist complex), and environmentally-caused illnesses afflict the poor on the fringes of cities (people living near the steel mills that supply construction develop lung and stomach tumors). Perspectives shift frequently and without announcement, slipping from one “he” to another “he” within the space of a paragraph. Characters move through the present and the past as they narrate, and the line between the two is frequently blurred. These disorienting shifts reveal how white- collar crime in fact pervades every level of Southern Italian society, from a lower-class Tarantine truck driver to the chancellor of the University of Bari. Each character has his own motives for willfully ignoring it. Through Clara’s death—which most of the novel’s characters are callously uninterested in—we are able to see how capitalistic greed has bred moral decay. That decay is uncovered as Michele, Clara’s mentally ill half-brother with whom she shared an intense relationship, strives to better understand her life and death. Michele is the only one who has a motive for unveiling what really happened to Clara, and in turn, for bringing to light his family’s depravity. The book spends a lot of page time depicting the characters’ intense misogyny. We hear from multiple characters that women deserve to be shown the back of a man’s hand. When Clara was alive, she chased after her “one long moment of happiness” with Michele, believing the path back to him was to sleep with Bari’s most powerful men—who her father blackmails—allowing them to beat and rape her. Given this focus, I was disheartened to find that Lagioia never fully endows Clara with rich interiority or motivations that read as fully believable. The desire to reunite with her brother as he was in his adolescence is hardly a satisfactory answer to why Clara aids and abets her father’s corruption. Clara is forever subjugated to men, including Michele, who she spends her final years pining after. Still, as every other aspect of Lagioia’s novel is intricately planned, I am willing to concede that perhaps the opacity of Clara’s motives is purposeful. Michele reflects on this point before Clara’s death: “We’re guided by forces of which we’re unaware, we act without knowledge, we say things whose motive is unclear, crimes without guilt and deaths without any apparent cause.” Ferocity gives us plenty of these possibilities to consider. Kristen Martin is at work on a collection of essays that explores and meditates on grief—her personal and lasting grief over the deaths of her parents; cultural representations of grief on television, in music, and in literature; and our society’s ever-morphing relationship with grief and mourning. Her personal and critical essays have been published in Literary Hub, Hazlitt, Catapult Magazine, Real Life, The Hairpin, Guernica , and elsewhere. She teaches first-year writing at Baruch College and works as a consultant at the Columbia University Writing Center.