Erri De Luca, writing against the impossible

Erri De Luca, Italian writer, in studio at RFI (September 2020).

© RFI / Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint

By: Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint

2 min

Erri De Luca, born in Naples in 1950, after having been a worker, an activist, became a writer, poet and translator.

He is the author of an abundance of work including the novels Montedidio (2002, Foreign Femina Prize) and The Weight of the Butterfly (2011), or more recently The Goose Tour (2019). His new novel has been translated into French under the title Impossible, by Danièle Valin, published by Gallimard.

Publicity

French cover of the novel © Gallimard

"On a steep path in the Dolomites, a man falls into the void. Behind him, another man gives the alert. However, they are not strangers. Companions of the same revolutionary group forty years earlier, the first had delivered the second and all his former comrades in the police. An improbable meeting, an impossible coincidence above all, for the magistrate in charge of the case, who tries to make the suspect confess a premeditated murder.


In a novel of great tension, Erri De Luca reconstructs the exchange between a young judge and an accused, an old man “of the generation most sued in the history of Italy.” But the questioning slowly turns into a dialogue and then emerges a rich reflection on the 'commitment, justice, friendship and betrayal. "

(Presentation of Gallimard editions)

TO DISCOVER ALSO

* The audio version of the novel

Impossible,

 in the "Listen to Lire" collection at Gallimard

* The previous novel by Erri De Luca

The Goose Tour,

 published in the "Folio" collection.

"BOOKS" MAGAZINE REVIEW

: Portrait of the Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós by Baptiste Touverey.

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