EUNIC BOOK CLUB - BOOK LAUNCH WITH ENRICA FERRARA

Wednesday 15 May 2024 at 6.30 – Italian Institute of Culture, Pavilion Hall

For the new 2024 edition of the Reading Club sponsored by the participating members of EUNIC in Ireland, the Italian Institute will host the author and lecturer Enrica Ferrara, long-standing curator of the IIC Book Club as well as the newly established literary festival FIILI.

Enrica will introduce her first fictional book “Mia madre aveva una cinquecento gialla” (Fazi, 2024), a bittersweet debut about a family suddenly insnared within the political scandals that divided Italy towards the Eighties, across the years of Lead and the infamous kidnapping of Aldo Moro.

A genuine and honest Bildungsroman, that recounts shady businesses as seen through the piercing eyes of a young girl.

The meeting will be held in English and it is the second of the EUNIC European Book Club 2024 series, which will involve 9 European authors, each one from their respective countries, as well as Irish critics and scholars.

Free admission, reserve your seat on this page.

ABOUT

Enrica Ferrara is an Italian author. Born in Naples, she has been living in Dublin for over twenty years, working at Trinity College and collaborating with the Italian Institute of Culture in Dublin. She has published numerous essays on literature and cinema, particularly on Italo Calvino, Elena Ferrante, Natalia Ginzburg, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Domenico Starnone. In 2024, she published her debut novel, “Mia madre aveva una cinquecento gialla” with Fazi Editore.

PLOT

Gina is ten years old and the daughter of a Christian Democracy politician, Mario Carafa, who in the summer of 1980 is forced to flee Naples and leave his family behind. With her mother Sofia and her sister Betta, Gina sets off under a false name to reach her father in Sardinia. Thanks to her unrestrained passion for stories and new words, Gina tries with all her might to understand what is happening, attempting to decipher the meaning of exotic terms for her like “scapegoat”, “fugitive”, “brigadist”, and “camorrist”. She seems to grasp their meaning, yet the more time passes, the more confused she becomes: is her father innocent or guilty? Is he a politician or a camorrist? Who are his friends and who has become his enemy? Amid family misunderstandings, adolescent rebellions, new friendships, and new adventures aboard her mother’s rickety yellow Cinquecento, Gina navigates through this difficult times and embarks on her own investigation to uncover the true reasons behind her father’s disappearance and, above all, to try to bring him home once and for all.

Host or Publisher Istituto Italiano di Cultura - Dublino