Monday 18 June 2018

"Love, šaltibarščiai and red tomatoes. Biography of a love", by Fabrizio Ulivieri. A book that will keep you engaged in Love.



On June, 2018 in Italy comes out "Love, šaltibarščiai and red tomatoes. Biography of a love", by Fabrizio Ulivieri. (Cover photo by Živilė Abrutytė). Prospero Editore, Milano.

It is the biography of Austėja, a Lithuanian girl of the post-liberation generation, which was bred in 1991 after the soviet attack to Vilnius Radio and Television tower and the killing of 14 civilians.
Austėja, daughter of that generation, loves Italy and and is naturally averse to Lithuania. But at the end of the book she will find out her love for Lithuania which is genetically inscribed in her mind and therefore impossible to be erased.
It is a beautiful description of the feelings that are established in this relationship of love between Austėja and her Italian companion who comes to live in Vilnius, driven by his strong "amore" for Austėja, a love born in Florence where they met.
A text that illustrates well the continuous contrast regarding the way of perceiving between two complex systems (Austėja and his companion) that digs deeply into the reality that underlies the falling in love, which happens according to certain historical patterns on the surface (history — we are what our history is)  and according to the quantum symmetry beneath that surface: a quantity of energy that is established as a constant form that remains and that allows the recognition of love, regardless of time and space and the individual (complex system), every time the individual becomes enamoured.
A book capable to develop a dizzying pace and keep the reader engaged by the author capacity for speculation and analysis. A narrative that is able to penetrate the fragmentation of feelings and reassemble it in its totality in a truly vertiginous way.

Sunday 10 June 2018

An absurd idea: why I wrote my most recent book (still under revision) "Islands of Happiness"


This story begins a year before and ends almost one year later. A span of time in the human being life relatively short but long, nonetheless. As life on earth: long but relatively short yet.
It all started with a photo, which looked as many other photos, only a photo which aimed to fix a moment of happiness. And it fixed it forever, that is to say, for as long as it will exist.
But happiness is not  only a moment of our lives, happiness is not even eternal, as eternal are not photos and people.
But why then we look for happiness? What strange idea is this odd idea of ours?
An absurd idea, but substantially possible though, in spite of everything.
Because of that picture taken at the beginning of this book the destiny (but destiny does not exist — it's just a way of talking about life directions) wanted to be discussed for many pages to narrate the life of a family that in Vilnius, Lithuania, fought for their happiness in a time frame that corresponds to almost twelve months of existence.
It is a true story, as true are all the narratives that make us believe in something. To believe in something we need stories because stories make people and things close. Without stories, no person or thing become close and therefore true. This is the kind of stories that make us believe (approach) to values, to heroes, to States ... they make us exist and elude nothingness.
But why are we human beings desperately seeking happiness? Why are we building stories to stay close and to believe in a world we want — a world of our own and happy? Why do we obstinately seek an island where we can live together in that happiness?
To answer these questions, "destiny" pushed this story to be written, for many reasons, but above all for one: avoiding desperation.
Only happy stories take us out of that Nothing that haunts us and crucifies us, naked, in front of a single truth that we would never have wanted to hear:

There is nothing after us 
Not even an anything 
that would be something yet.

(by Giorgio Caproni, Italian poet)

Monday 4 June 2018

Un'idea assurda: perché ho scritto il mio più recente libro (ancora in fase di revisione): Isole di Felicità

Foto Živilė Abrutytė

Un’ idea assurda 

Questa storia comincia un anno prima e termina quasi un anno dopo. Un arco di tempo nelle vite di alcuni esseri umani relativamente breve eppure lungo. Come la vita sulla terra, lunga ma relativamente breve.
E tutto comincia da una foto, che cerca come tutte le foto, di fissare un attimo di felicità. E lo fissa in eterno, ovvero per tutto il tempo che essa esisterà.
Ma la felicità non è un attimo e la felicità non è neppure eterna, come eterne non sono le foto e le persone.
Ma perché allora cercare la felicità? Che idea strana è mai questa idea?
Un’idea assurda, eppure possibile, nonostante tutto.
Da quella foto il destino (ma il destino non esiste — è solo un modo di dire) ha voluto che si parlasse per molte pagine di una famiglia che a Vilnius, in Lituania, ha cercato la propria felicità in un lasso di tempo che corrisponde a quasi dodici mesi di esistenza.
È una storia vera, come vere sono tutte le narrazioni che ci fanno credere in qualcosa. Per credere in qualcosa abbiamo bisogno di storie perché le storie avvicinano uomini e cose. Senza storie nessuna persona o cosa è vicina e pertanto vera. Sono le storie che fanno credere (avvicinandoci) ai valori, agli eroi, agli Stati...ci fanno esistere e eludono il nulla.
Ma perché gli esseri umani cercano disperatamente la felicità? Perché si costruiscono storie per stare vicini e per credere in un mondo tutto loro e felice? Perché ostinatamente cercano un’isola dove vivere insieme in quella felicità?
Per rispondere a queste domande “il destino” ha voluto che si scrivesse questa storia, per tante ragioni ma una soprattutto: evitare la disperazione.
Solo storie felici ci sottraggono a un nulla che ci perseguita e ci crocifigge nudi davanti a una sola verità che non vorremmo mai ascoltare


Dopo di noi non c'è nulla
Nemmeno il nulla
che già sarebbe qualcosa[1]








[1] Giorgio Caproni, poeta.

Creatures

  His countenance likes me not. Such a deal of man Is he? a true God's creature?