Francesca Melandri, an italian writer you should keep your eye on

Best-seller to Box-office recommends to have a look at her two novels. This is an interesting new author in Italy.

Francesca Melandri worked for a while as a scriptwriter and now is a full time writer. A first novel Eva Dorme (Eva sleeps) will be presented to producers at the Berlinale 2012.

PIU ALTO DEL MARE

The novel is out in Italy.  It has been sold to Rizzoli (change of publisher, before it was Mondadori), option in Germany (Blessing Verlag), France (Gallimard) and Holland (Cossee).

Piu’ alto del mare is a novel about two unlikely people joined by tragedy. It is a testament to the suffering of those involved – directly or indirectly – with violent crime: the criminals themselves, their families, their victims and their prison guards. Luisa, Paolo and Nitti are strong, well-drawn characters who invoke empathy in the reader, and their unusual love story is really moving. The island too is a forceful presence in the narrative.

Pitch: A love story of a standing alone night set in a island of the South were two people are visiting relatives in a secluded jail.

The story

Set in Italy in 1979, during the “Anni di piombo” (the “Lead Years”), this is the story of an unexpected romance forged on an unnamed penitentiary island in the Mediterranean.

Paolo is a former Philosophy teacher whose only son is serving a sentence for murder and terrorism in the maximum security prison located on the unnamed island. His son became involved in terrorist activities linked to the Communist Party. Paolo keeps the photo of the daughter of the man his son killed in his wallet as a reminder of his son’s crime. He is a widower, as his wife died a few months after their son’s conviction.

Luisa is an uneducated cattle-farmer whose husband is also serving time for two murders (including the murder of a prison guard). She looks after their 5 children and their farm. In comparison to Paolo, she is not devastated by her husband’s incarceration: he was a violent man and she is happy to be left in peace. The story is set at the time of her first visit to the island after her husband’s transfer. It is the first time she has seen the sea.

Nitti is a prison guard who lives with his wife and family on the island, despite his constant requests for a transfer to the mainland. Nitti has been severely marked by his profession: he regularly participates in acts of violence and degradation towards the prisoners (a fact that he is too ashamed to talk to his wife about).

Paolo, Luisa, and Nitti find themselves thrown together when a freak storm prevents the two visitors from returning to the continent. Nitti is put in charge of their surveillance and they enjoy an evening at his family home, followed by a night at a disused residence.

The next day Paolo and Luisa are able to travel back to the mainland on the ferry. At Luisa’s bequest they book a double-room on the boat, and they make love for the first – and only – time. Before they part, Luisa takes the photo of the victim’s daughter out of Paolo’s wallet and tells him that she will look after it for him.  Some days after their trip there is a  prisoner’s revolt at the maximum security prison on the island, as a result of which the prisoners are all transferred. Paolo and Luisa know that they will never have again the possibility of meeting while visiting their relatives. They have a short and sweek phone call and this is all, but they are very closed even if so far away each other.

The epilogue – set 30 years later – reveals that Nitti finally returned to the mainland after suffering health problems. Luisa’s husband died and she remarried a widower in her village. Paolo’s son was released after serving 19 years in prison and 8 more years in semi-liberty. During his sentence he privately contacted the family of his victim, including the girl in the photo. Upon his release he set up a program to help reinsert ex-prisoners back into society. He lives with his father. Luisa still has the photo that she took from Paolo’s wallet.

EVA DORME (Eva sleeps)

Her previous novel. Eva Dorme was awarded the Gran Premio delle Lettrici di Elle 2011 in Italy and sold 20.000 copies, which is great for a first novel in Italy. it was sold to Gallimard, Cossee, Blessing.

Eva Dorme tells about an orphaned land, a fatherless little girl, and a passionate, star-crossed love.

A story of love lost and found, and also the true story of South Tyrol, a land so many people visit, so few people really know. A story atonement and reconciliation, both personal and political.

Pitch: Love story set in the period of German indipendentist terrorism in South Tirolo in Italy.

The story

It’s a cool April dawn. Fourtysomething Eva can’t sleep, like on so many other nights. She opens the window, inhales the balmy mountain air.

The phone rings. An old man’s feeble voice calls Eva by her childhood nickname. He’s dying, he says, and wants to see her one last time. It’s Vito. A retired military policeman from Italy’s South, he’s a veteran of the fight against Southtyrolean terrorism in the ‘60s – somber, violent times of ethnic strife, killings and bombs.

Those were also the times, however, of Vito’s love for beautiful Gerda Huber. Gerda was a German-speaking cook in a first class Hotel, the sister of a ruthless terrorist and Eva’s single mother – and this in a conservativly Catholic mountain community. When Vito entered her life Eva, still a little girl, experienced for the first and only time in her life what a father can be: someone who cares for you so deeply he might even scold you so as to make you a better person.

So Eva travels by rail down South, all along Italy’s spine, all the way from the Alps to Calabria, the Boot’s toes. And as she travels, the history of South Tyrol and of the Huber family unravels.

Why did Vito disappear from Gerda’s life? What happened to him? And why did this man, who loved Eva as if she were his own child, never try to keep in touch with her?

It’s high time for Eva to find out. Somehow she knows: only by facing the truth will she ever be able to sleep soundly again, like when she was a little girl.

Complete story on http://www.bs2bo.com (subscribers)

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