ANDREA PENNACCHI. UNA PICCOLA ODISSEA

"I came into possession of a copy of The Odyssey quite early on: when I was in junior high school, my father ran the book stand at the Festa dell’Unità in my neighbourhood. The rain had damaged a prose version by Garzanti, and he gave it to me as a gift. There was no difference, for me, between Tolkien and Homer, it was a great story, or rather a story of stories, in which I had no difficulty recognising the people I loved: my father returning from the concentration camp, my mother waiting, defending herself from the invaders, mourning, joy. And I always wanted to tell the story. We thought of restoring the flavour of the oral tale by proposing a multi-voice version, which also gives due weight to the rich female component and the actual return".