LONDON 2010 RIGHTS GUIDE

LONDON 2010 RIGHTS GUIDE
www.bgagency.it
Erica Berla, [email protected]
Barbara Griffini, [email protected]
Stefano Tura, [email protected]
B&G AUTHORS
Elisabetta Bucciarelli
Roan Johnson
Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani
FELTRINELLI
Fiction
Sotto cieli noncuranti, Benedetta Cibrario
La sposa dell’aria, Marco Albino Ferrari
Meccanica celeste, Maurizio Maggiani
Il valore dei giorni, Sebastiano Nata
Hanno tutti ragione, Paolo Sorrentino
Foravia, Dario Voltolini
Non fiction
La consistenza della luce, Alessandro Carrera
Don Vito, Massimo Ciancimino e Francesco La Licata
La disunità del mondo, Alessandro Colombo
Arte e artefatti, Tomás Maldonado
Ho sognato una banca, Fabio Salviato
Il ritorno, Giuliana Sgrena
Il corpo delle donne, Lorella Zanardo
KOWALSKI
Il matematico curioso, Giovanni Filocamo
Nessuno, nemmeno tu, Lucia Tilde Ingrosso
Due cuori e un fornello, Ilaria Mazzarotta
La magia dei numeri, Mariano Tomatis
BACKLIST
Pane e tempesta, Stefano Benni
Hamas, Paola Caridi
I miti del nostro tempo, Umberto Galimberti
Scintille, Gad Lerner
Berla&Griffini Rights Agency – London 2010
B&G AUTHORS
Elisabetta Bucciarelli
Elisabetta Bucciarelli lives and works in Milan. Her published works
include Io sono quello che scrivo. La scrittura come atto terapeutico (Calderini
Editore) and Le professioni della scrittura (Il Sole 24 Ore), screenplays such as
Amati Matti, which received a special mention at the 53rd Cinema Biennial
in Venice. She works for a variety of newspapers writing articles on
philosophy, the arts and manias. She founded and has run for over 10 years
the “Expressing oneself through writing, writing to feel good” workshop.
She has published many short stories in anthologies by Mondadori,
Sperling&Kupfer and Todaro Edizioni
TI VOGLIO CREDERE
Kowalski Colorado Noir, 2010.
Inspector Maria Dolores Vergani is under house arrest in Milan. She is being questioned for the
unlawful killing following the stabbing of a woman that has taken place in the Valle d’Aosta woodland.
She is exercising her right to not answer. Hidden away at home and surrounded by beautiful bunches of
flowers, she is trying to find out the truth of a story that so far has shown highly undefined boundaries.
News comes in at the Milan Central Police station that a young woman has committed suicide by
jumping off the Viale Forlanini bridge. Detective Achille Maria Funi decides to immediately inform
Inspector Vergani of these events both because of his long lasting connection with her and her
professional skills.
From the very start the case appears to be a truly daunting task to solve. Then, three majestic crosses
are found embedded into the ground in the San Siro neighbourhood; an enigmatic Golgotha is
discovered in the garden of a well-to-do family. Soon other crosses start to appear mysteriously in other
cities, a sinister Via Crucis which in one location also reveals a corpse. Another young woman who has
clearly been tormented both in body and soul, the victim of an unobtainable idea of perfection inflicted
through the kind of starvation that aspires to ascension.
While Funi tries to follow his intuition, Maria Dolores spirals into a strange train of thoughts in which
alternating memories are confused with uncertain perceptions, Justice and Truth. Not always are they
sides of the same medal. Held captive by one of the toughest investigations – her own innocence or
guilt – Vergani is forced to also reconsider her personal sense of justice.
“Bucciarelli writes about uncertainties and has the ability to question the shadows that appear in all
individuals after the initial glow of light."
L’indice dei libri del mese
“Bucciarelli writes very poisonous yet highly sophisticated thrillers."
Il Sole 24 Ore
Former novels
Io ti perdono (Kowalski Colorado Noir) – Fedeli Award 2009, rights sold in Germany (btb Verlag)
Femmina de luxe (PerdisaPop) – Bloody Mary Award 2008
Dalla parte del torto (Mursia) – finalist Scerbanenco and Azzeccagarbugli award
Happy Hour (Mursia)
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Roan Johnson
Roan Johnson, born in London, has been scene-writer and script-writer for
adverts and TV serials for Rai Fiction and Mediaset. His scripts and
screenplays for the cinema include Ora o mai più by Lucio Pellegrini and an
episode of the movie 4-4-2 – Il gioco più bello del mondo, which he also
directed.
PROVE DI FELICITÀ A ROMA EST
Einaudi Stile Libero, 2010. Translation rights Einaudi
“For me being a loser was a vocation. My mother would have said that it was because I was too sensitive. I knew it was
because I had been cheated”
Arturo is twenty-two and left his village to go in a private school in Rome for his high school diploma.
Now he lives with an old professor who is waiting for a transplant and has not left his flat for ages. To
make ends meet he delivers pizzas, riding round Rome on a Vespa and spying on people, their looks and
their habits, trying to understand the city and the people who live there.
With the ironic eye of a young provincial Tuscan newly arrived in the capital, Arturo Baldacci describes a
contemporary Rome that is rough, vibrant and real: in the midst of pizza delivery boys, Bulgarians with
absurd jobs, Ukrainian carers, retired teachers of Greek and agoraphobics, exploited school teachers.
And above all Samia, the nymph with the salty heart. The girl who shines for a brief, brilliant season.
A world of exploitation, suburbs and sublets. A light-hearted farewell to youth and its infinite capacity
for making mistakes. An irreverent coming-of-age novel which is also the most classic and touching of
love stories.
“The début of 35-year-old Roan is a thrilling novel”
Giovanni Pacchiano, Il Sole 24 Ore
“It could be a John Fante novel, for its attitude in describing, far from politically correctness, a mixed
society as is Italy today – the good news is that we’re talking about an Italian novel… Prove di felicità a
Roma Est is the wonderful first novel of Roan Johnson”
Luca Mastrantonio, Il riformista
Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani
Born in Rome in 1951, Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani is an internationally
renowned architect and scholar. He has studied at Rome and Stuttgart
University and has taken a doctorate in architecture in both Universities.
He now teaches History and Theory of Architecture at the ETH in Zurich.
He is a member of the Baden-Württemberg Institute for Architects, the
Deutscher Werkbund, the Bund Deutscher Architekten, the Bund
Schweizer Architekten.
He has taken and still takes part in many panels for architecture competitions and awards: among them
the Praemium Imperiale, Tokyo, the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture, Barcelona
and the Green Prize for Urban Planning, Harvard University.
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His most important architectural publications have all been translated into several languages.
Recent and upcoming titles
L’architettura della città nel XX. secolo
City Architecture in the 20th Century
Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani is working on his magnum opus, an important study about the European
and American city of the 20th century in its architectonic dimension. The forma urbis is shown in its
topographical, climatic, political, economical and technical conditions, and in the context of different
theories and cultures. At its core, this study focuses on the urban as a physical manifestation, an artifact
which is drawn and built.
The book will be published in Summer 2010 by Klaus Wagenbach Verlag in 2 hardcover volumes and
will be generously illustrated.
His latest titles are Verhaltene Geschwindigkeit. Die Zukunft der telematischen Stadt (Captured Quickness. The
Future of the Telematic City), published in Germany by Wagenbach Verlag. You may find a brief overview
of the title on the publisher's website: http://tinyurl.com/nb794y (German text)
Die Modernität des Dauerhaften (Modernity and Duration), published in Germany by Wagenbach and in Italy
by Skirà, is a reflection on the concept of "Modern", turning upside down its social, technological and
aesthetical aims while advocating a critic use of technology.
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FICTION
Benedetta Cibrario
SOTTO CIELI NONCURANTI
Under unminding skies
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 256
Publication: February 2010
Magistrate Giovanni Corrias is called to the Turin police headquarters to investigate on the mysterious
circumstances of the death of a young child who has fallen out of the window while home alone with
his mother: fatal distraction or a fit of homicidal madness? The boys’ mother Irene has shut herself into
an inaccessible silence and the father Pietro, a successful business man is apparently free of
responsibility since he was away on business trip.
Destiny wants that the very same evening Giovanni Corrias’s personal life takes a tragic turn: his wife
Chiara and mother to the three daughters they adored, is run over and killed as she is walking the dog, a
task he usually undertook himself.
Giovanni Corrias devastated and unable to cope with the pain, takes refuge in his investigation rather
then turning to his daughters. Twelve year old Matilda, the youngest daughter tries to give meaning to
what is going on arround her, her father ‘s estrangement, the new resentment shown to their dog. A
crucial role will be played by Violaine Griot, a young detective, with a degree in psychology, who is
helping Giovanni Corrias with the investigation . Her emotional oversensitivity might at first lead her to
make mistakes, but her intuition will help Corrias solve the case, and her growing closeness to his
daughters will prevent Corrias family to fall apart and most importantly will stop Matilda to make a fatal
act in order to regain her father’s love.
Benedetta Cibrario was born in Florence, and divides her time between Oxford, Milan, and Tuscany
where she cultivates her passions: four children, writing, and a garden. Her previous novel Rossovermiglio
sold more than 100.000 copies and won the Campiello award.
Former titles sold in: Germany (Rowohlt), Greece (Oceanida), The Netherlands (Wereldbibliotheek),
Portugal (Porto Ed.), Romania (Humanitas), Serbia (Plato Books)
Marco Albino Ferrari
LA SPOSA DELL’ARIA
The airborne bride. 1893, a mountain odyssey
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 192
Publication: February 2010
“Faced with the danger of the mountains, undiscovered precipices and the overwhelming dazzle of glaciers, Annette was
nothing but a frail figure silhouetted on the edge of a vast sheet of paper. An insignificant life lost in that distant world
which just a few hours earlier had applauded her. And yet she knew that she would make it. It was just a question of
determination”
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Turin, Sunday 8th of October 1893. It is the most important day in the life of Anna Demichelis, eighteen
year’s old and of humble origins. She is to marry the “air admiral” Giuseppe Charbonnet, an aerostatics
enthusiast who has promised the entire city an incredible spectacle: after the ceremony he will take off
with his wife in the Stella airship. To the cry of “three cheers for the airborne bride and groom!” the
balloon will soar into the sky getting smaller and smaller until it disappears. It will turn out to be an epic
adventure, through storms and dangers and a disastrous landing on a mountain that nobody has ever
heard of. And then their descent down sun drenched glaciers, carved by hidden crevices. Until a – some
say - celestial hand shows them the way. This true story, which was in the news for weeks, merges with
the authors own experiences in the remotest parts of the Graian Alps where the events and the final
mystery took place.
The result is a fascinating novel full of surprises told by somebody who knows the mountains intimately,
having spent much of his time climbing and sharing their mysteries in his books
Marco Albino Ferrari was born in Milan in 1965. He founded and edits the magazine “Meridiano
Montagne”. He has written: Frêney 1961. Tragedia sul monte bianco (Vivalda 1996), Il vuoto alle spalle. Storia di
Ettore Castiglioni (Corbaccio 1999), Terraferma (Corbaccio 2001) and In viaggio sulle Alpi (Einaudi, 2009).
Maurizio Maggiani
MECCANICA CELESTE
Celestial Mechanics
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 224
Publication: March 2010
Rights sold in Germany (Nautilus Verlag)
Maurizio Maggiani has drawn from his skill as great oral narrator in order to write his very ‘own’ Iliad, his most generous
and dream-like novel. He has turned the region between Versilia and the Apuan Alps into a place of legends, where, with
their every movement, the inhabitants bring back to life a part of History that has by no means ended and needs to be
narrated so that it may be remembered not just at anniversaries but also in order to contrast all possible revisionary lies.
The setting is what the characters in this novel call with bureaucratic affection Our District: namely a
geographical area between the Versilia coast, the spiky tops of the Apuan Alps and the more severe
outline of mountain tops and valleys formed by the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. It is the night Barack
Obama was to be elected president, and while waiting for the results the narrator and and his partner
Nina make love and conceive a child.. During the following nine months, the inevitable and wonderful
legacy of memory causes the father-to-be to recall his own personal story as well all those other stories
which are brought back to protect something that cannot take place without the blessing of time, and so
re-kindles the legendary essence of the inhabitants of the District.
The story stretches then narrows again, it moves back and forth in time: from the present day it goes
back to the Second World War (when the District suffered attacks and destruction) and from there even
further back to the turn of the century: to the times when people emigrated to England and across the
Ocean, when there was intense movement of people departing from the edge of the District to go to
Amazonian rivers, concentration camps, Transvaal mines and then again from those far away worlds
back to the wild and protective mountains of the District.
The linking thread and main emotional element of the story is Duse, the narrator’s mother. She is an
intrepid junior school teacher, a tango player at her parent’s Inn set in the heart of the Tuscan hills and
custodian of the mystery of her long lost love with a handsome soldier: the narrator’s father. A number
of characters rotate around Duse – Santarellina, an orphan who was bought at the age of eight by a
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farming family and who spent twenty years making chips in Newcastle; Omo Nudo, who returned in
rags from a German concentration camp and became an illicit pig slaughterer; Otello, a tombstone
engraver in Argentina; Don Gigliante , more an authoritarian curator of souls than a traditional parish
priest and also radical “trade unionist” of quarry diggers. In a world that is threatened by war, by
madness or by work, all the characters of Meccanica Celeste are bearers of the “good news of love”; they
are all part of a magical circle in which it easy to pass on traditions. Almost as if the baby who is yet to
be born can hear these stories which come from distant times but which still survive in the shapes of
these mountains and in the mystery of these places: Pania, Monte Pisanino, Omo Morto, Orto di
Donna, Sant’Anna di Sazema.
Maurizio Maggiani was born in Castelnuovo Magra in 1951. With Feltrinelli he has published Vi ho già
tutti sognato una volta (1990), Felice alla guerra (1992), mauri mauri (1996), Il coraggio del pettirosso (1995,
Viareggio, Repaci and Campiello Awards), La regina disadorna (1998, Alassio and Stresa narrative awards
1998), È stata una vertigine (2002), and Il viaggiatore notturno which won the Strega Awards.
Sebastiano Nata
IL VALORE DEI GIORNI
The importance of days
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 224
Publication: February 2010
Sebastiano Nata delves into the human soul and takes the reader to the edge of light and shadow, between reality and
fiction.
Marco and Domenico Leoni are brothers, but they couldn’t be more unlike: Marco is organised,
efficient, methodical, introverted, lives in Rome and has worked his way up the ladder in a multinational
company: he puts all his energy into his work and placidly watches his relationship with his wife Isabella,
with whom he has never found the time, or perhaps the drive, to have a child, disintegrate; Domenico is
untidy, flamboyant, extravagant and happily lives a country life in Porto San Giorgio where, with the
help of his brother, he has opened a shop selling doors and windows and where he has fallen in love
with a much younger woman, Teresa, who has two children.
Marco is convinced that Teresa is just a social climber, but he is too wrapped up in his work to be
particularly concerned about his brother. However, he is forced to put his work aside when Domenico
dies unexpectedly. The death of his brother brings him into contact with Teresa and her two children
and with his mother, who he has not seen for sometime; he meets a priest who had recently introduced
Domenico to new beliefs: he feels the first signs of an economic crisis that would go on to shake global
equilibrium: he comes into contact with a more human and natural way of life which accelerates and
finally brings out an inner crisis within him that he can no longer ignore. This causes him to re-evaluate
his existence and his emotional and professional decisions in very different terms to those he had been
used to.
Sebastiano Nata was born in Rome in 1955. Il dipendente, his first novel (Theoria 1995, Feltrinelli 1997)
was widely acclaimed by the critics. Feltrinelli also published his books, La resistenza del nuotatore (1999)
and Mentre ero via (2004).
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Paolo Sorrentino
HANNO TUTTI RAGIONE
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 310
Publication: April 2010
Rights sold in France (Albin Michel) and Spain (Anagrama)
Paolo Sorrentino (Naples,1970) is one the most famous Italian film directors and screenwriters (One
Man Up, 2001; Consequences of Love, 2004; The Family Friend, 2006; Il Divo, 2008, Prix du Jury at Cannes
Film Festival), internationally recognized and appreciated.
Hanno tutti ragione (Everyone is right) is his first novel, an extraordinary début that the Italian literary critic
Antonio D’Orrico greeted with the following words: “After I had read this beautiful novel I thought of
Ezra Pound, who saw the magnificence of Venice and asked God what kind of punishment expected
the humans for such an early reward”.
Sorrentino’s novel will be published by Feltrinelli on March 10. It’s the story of Tony Pagoda, a
Neapolitan melodic singer with a colorful past. We meet him in the early Eighties, in a blooming and
wildly happy Italy, between Naples, Capri and the world. A picaresque hero of our time, Tony is a
talented and successful artist, has money and women, and he likes all kind of extremes and
extravagances. His friends can be extraordinary men or miserable people, and from all of them he
learned something. An exuberant and restless wisdom is emanating from him. He could be compared to
a contemporary Falstaff, revealing with comic relief the substance of men, both winners and losers.
When life gets complicated, when the scene shifts, Tony Pagoda knows it’s time for a change. A sharp
steer. To go away. To disappear. To seek silence. He goes on a short tour in Brazil and decides to stay
there; first in Rio, then in Manaus, crowned by a new freedom and obsessed with cockroaches. But after
eighteen years of humid amazonic exile, somebody is willing to sign a stratospheric check to make him
come back to Italy. A new life is expecting him.
Quotes about Hanno tutti ragione:
“Even literary critics dream. They dream that one day they happen to review a novel as beautiful as That
Awful Mess on the Via Merulana or Acquainted with Grief by Carlo Emilio Gadda or Voyage au bout de la nuit
by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. As if they were books published now, in 2010, and not in 1957 or in 1963 or
in 1932. Literary critics dream that the best is not in the past. Today the dream has come true. The novel
as beautiful as That Awful Mess is entitled Hanno tutti ragione”, Corriere della Sera.
International praises of Paolo Sorrentino’s films:
THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE
“Sorrentino’s technical mastery and shaping of bizarre, dream-like scenes is gripping”, The Guardian.
“Pleasingly intelligent and surprisingly substantial”, Time Out.
THE FAMILY FRIEND
“Sorrentino is dark, obscure, sombre and detached… As with David Lynch, we are often left wondering
weather what we’re seeing is real or imaginary, possibly a dream”, The Observer.
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“The spirits of Michelangelo Antonioni and Ben Jonson come together in this terrifically stylish, angular,
enigmatic new movie by the Italian writer-director Paolo Sorrentino, who showed the same weird and
captivating elegance in his 2004 film The Consequences of Love”, The Guardian.
IL DIVO
“An intensely political film so wildly inventive and witty that it will become a touchstone for years to
come… Il Divo is a masterpiece for maverick helmer-scribe Paolo Sorrentino”, Variety.
“Opéra baroque, farce tapageuse, inventaire de sketches musicaux, saynètes burlesques magistralement
mises en scène… Ce film caustique est à la fois drôle, impitoyable et gorgé d’inventions visuelles, Le
Monde.
“It is a terrific piece of cinema, thoroughly meriting its critical comparisons to Scorsese and Sokurov”,
The Guardian.
“The filmmaking is sensational… Almost every shot in the film is a grand composition, with heavy
chiaroscuro and emotionally stirring music… An operatic cinema, it ranks alongside the best of Scorsese
and Coppola”, The New York Times.
“This is filmmaking of such verve and style that you just won’t care that you can’t follow it completely.
If you don’t think a film about Italian politics could possibly interest you, Paolo Sorrentino’s virtuoso
direction will change your mind”, Los Angeles Time.
“Five reasons why Paolo Sorrentino will save world cinema: 1) if Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, and
Federico Fellini had a love child, Sorrentino would be it; 2) he makes politics beautiful; 3) his movies are
all about change; 4) his films are all about debt; 5) he’s got a pair the size of Italy”, New York
Magazine.
Dario Voltolini
FORAVIA
Foravia. A tryptich
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 96
Publication: April 2010
In the Foravìa triptych we are drawn close to a seductive writing style, with a clearly perceptible European influence.
It all began accidentally – a missed rendezvous. Dario had been invited to a party in a villa on the hills
outside Turin but which, despite the clear directions provided, he never found and ended up having to
spend the night in his car. Nothing particularly odd about this except for the fact that in the letter that
Dario then writes to Luca (the friend who invited him to the party in the first place) he draws a strange
and contradictory conclusion: that day, Saturday the 27th October 1990, could not have existed, and yet
it did. But there is more to the letter: he describes all the exceptions (this is how Dario calls the the
events that do not follow the normal rules of daily life) of that long day of almost twenty years ago.
Above all he ascertains that Turin as it was then no longer exists: the factories have been deserted and
are now part of industrial archaeology, trade unionists have become a virtually extinct species and the
motivation to change things has become a lost ideal. So what is left? The only thing left is the essence of
that long day in which Dario, as he falls asleep in his freezing car in the hope that the light of day will
show him where he went wrong, realises he has stumbled across another exception.
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Elisabeth is the second theme of this triptych. The story of how a man suddenly finds himself living a
different life, with other priorities and a new perspective – namely that of an immigrant seeking help and
which he doesn’t know how to, or simply cannot refuse.
Another misunderstanding, another deviation.
Then we get to a spider – which the main character calls Fabio – who is constantly challenged by daily
existence. One day Fabio is carried in through a window –by the wind, perhaps, or maybe the
consequence of a daring expedition outside his home territory: who knows – and terrifies the inhabitants
of the apartment but ends up being taken into custody by the main character. Fascinated yet concerned
by that eight-legged creature about which he knows nothing (not even what sex it is) the protagonist
embarks on a long and extraordinary journey among insect specialists, public health service offices, vets
and professors in agriculture in order to try and determine its species.
With Fabio, Voltolini idyllically concludes his triptych on the dysfunctions of normality.
Dario Voltolini was born in 1959 in Turin where he lives. He is on the Holden School education
committee and is co-founder of the Nazione Indiana and Il primo amore literary blogs. His work published by
Feltrinelli includes: Forme d’onda (1996), 10 (2000) and Primaverile (2001). Dario Voltolini has never ceased
to be an important figure in the Italian literary scene – his work is critically acclaimed (Forme d’onda,
Primaverile), he is professor at the Holden School and ‘virtual activist’ (Nazione Indiana, Il primo amore).
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NON FICTION
Alessandro Carrera
LA CONSISTENZA DELLA LUCE
The consistency of light
Genre: Non Fiction
Pages: 192
Publication: 27th January 2010
“In the suburbs where I was brought up, nature was building material that was given little consideration, seldom used and
ultimately abandoned to perpetual transience. We lived there as if the fields had always been car parks, as if the small hills
had always been rubbish dumps […] Order had to be sought elsewhere. Perhaps in writing, which from the outside
appeared very limiting but from the inside seemed infinite”.
This book is dedicated to the theme of light, vision and seeing, over a period spanning from Goethe and
Hegel to Merleau-Ponty and Calvino (the Goethian aspects of Calvino are analysed here for the first
time). And leading on from here the subject broadens to encompass the relationship between nature and
culture, light and writing and, in a wider sense, the overall concept of “theory” which historically and
etymologically is derived from the “visual privilege” which the classical Greeks and then western culture
have given to the optical rather than the other senses. From this point of view, writing about light does
not mean an exercise in curiosity or academia: the word light means the way the world shows itself, the
general condition for any practical or mental approach, the basis which theory has always sought in
order to support its findings. This book explores the subject of knowledge itself, its limitations and the
real possibility of experiencing the world through the mediation of light.
Alessandro Carrera studied philosophy at the Università degli Studi in Milan and is professor of Italian
Literature at Houston University in Texas. Feltrinelli has published Musica e pubblico giovanile (1980), La
voce di Bob Dylan (2001), Canzoni d’amore e misantropia (together with the DVD of the film Io non sono qui,
2008), and he has translated the lyrics and poetry of Bob Dylan.
Massimo Ciancimino
Francesco La Licata
DON VITO
The secret liasons between State and Mafia told by a unique
witness
Genre: Nonfiction
Pages: 320 (ill.)
Publication: April 2010
This is the true story of Vito Ciancimino, the “Mayor of the Corleones”: forty years in the grip of death, mafia, politics,
business deals and the secret service. From the siege of Palermo to the financing of Milano2, from the part played by the
Vatican bank in the payment of bribes to his friendship with Provenzano, the negotiations with Riina to halt the 1992
bloodbath, the part played by the Carabinieri and the mysterious identity of Signor Franco.
This book is a one way ride through the inferno of Italy’s most recent history. In fact it recounts forty
years of secret, hidden and previously censored contacts between politicians and the mafia, between the
state and Cosa Nostra. The book hinges on the story of Vito Ciancimino, “Don Vito da Corleone”, one of
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the key figures of Sicilian and Italian public life in recent history, a much discussed and questionable
personality and a personal friend of Bernardo Provenzano. ‘Don Vito’ was a very powerful councillor for
public works in Palermo, for a short period the mayor of that city and for decades the crucial link between
the hidden dealings of the mafia with public institutions, the Italian business world and the secret service.
A key witness reveals “Don Vito’s” secrets to us today; it is Massimo, the penultimate of his five children,
the one who was closest to him for years, throughout an infinite number of events and dangerous
situations. This direct account, told in this book for the first time with no intermediaries and which
includes illustrations of original documents and photographs, rewrites some of the most important pages
of recent Italian history: the “siege of Palermo” the development of the Milano 2 residential area, Calvi and
the Vatican bank, Salvo Lima and Andreotti’s Sicilian connection, the 1992 murders, the “Negotiations”
between certain members of the Italian State and Cosa Nostra, the capture of Totò Riina, the protection
enjoyed by Provenzano, the founding of Forza Italia, the part played by Marcello Dell’Utri and the
persistent and uncomfortable presence of the secret service throughout every important part of this piece
of Italian history. At present Massimo Ciancimino’s testimony is being very closely assessed by five Italian
courts and and it is not possible to predict the outcome. There is however no doubt that the deeds and
misdeeds narrated here come straight from the “rotten heart” of the Italian State. This is a real
politico/criminal epic that hypocrisy and moral degradation has kept hidden from us for too long.
Alessandro Colombo
LA DISUNITÀ DEL MONDO
World divisions. After the global century
Genre: Non Fiction
Pages: 384
Publication: February 2010
Rather than asking ourselves if and to what extent globalisation is growing, with respect to the past, we should ask
ourselves if and to what extent globalisation of the past can survive in the current international situation.
The most common representation of the current international situation tends to insist on the fact that
the world seems to have grown smaller owing to the expansion of world trade and banking relations and
to the development of transport and communication technology. But, almost inevitably, it seems to have
been forgotten that the shift into the 21st century has in fact seen quite the opposite take place in the
fields of diplomacy, strategy and ideology. In these areas the true global century was the 20th century: the
century that saw two world wars, the cold war, decolonisation and the clash between two universal
ideologies: liberal democracy and communism. Following the conclusion of these events, the
exceptional coherence of the bipolar world has been replaced by an international system in which the
various regions continue to keep in touch with each other through the globalisation of economy and
information, but each region increasingly tends to deal with different players, and to adopt different
interests, conflicts and languages. This fragmentation has great potential for instability: it accentuates
regional institutional and cultural differences, gives added weight to internal power and hierarchy status
and, in this way, paves the way to new forms of distrust and rivalry regarding safety issues. Above all,
this fragmentation means that global solutions will become increasingly inadequate; in fact there is a risk
that they will be transformed from elements of order to elements of international disorder.
Alessandro Colombo is Professor of International Relations at the Università degli Studi in Milan. His
published work includes Solitudine dell’Occidente (1994), La lunga alleanza. La Nato tra consolidamento,
supremazia e crisi (2001), La guerra ineguale. Pace e violenza nel tramonto della società internazionale (2006). He has
also edited several books, the most recent of which are L’Occidente diviso. La politica e le armi (2004), La
sfida americana. Europa, Medio Oriente e Asia orientale di fronte all’egemonia globale degli Stati Uniti (2006).
Berla&Griffini Rights Agency – London 2010
Tomás Maldonado
ARTE E ARTEFATTI
Art and Artifacts. An interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist
Genre: Non Fiction
Pages: 80
Publication: January 2010
“The search for transversality has undoubtedly been a constant in my long intellectual journey. Each
time I have been involved (whether practically or theoretically) in a particular field of activity, I have
always asked myself what are (or could be) the possible convergences of this field with other similar or
dissimilar ones. This has often led my thoughts well beyond the activity I was actually engaged in.
Although my training has been essentially in the arts, I must say that right from the very start my
interests have always gone beyond that specific field. The more I became involved in creating art, the
more my interests grew towards subjects that had philosophical, scientific and sociological implications.
And last, but not least, political. In fact as a very young man, my concern (I would almost say my
obsession) was of being able to contribute to a 360˚ view of culture.”
Tomás Maldonado
In this interview Hans Ulrich Obrist, well known art critic and curator of international exhibitions,
discusses with Tomás Maldonado a number of aspects of his polyhedric cultural activities. Maldonado
examines retrospectively (and in some cases self-critically) aspects of art, industrial design and architecture.
Tomás Maldonado, professor emeritus at the Milan Polytechnic, has published, with Feltrinelli: Il futuro
della modernità (1987), Cultura, democrazia, ambiente (1990), Reale e virtuale (1992, 2005), Che cos’è un
intelletuale? (1995), Critica della ragione informatica (1997). Memoria e conoscenza. Sulle sorti del sapere della
prospettiva digitale (2005); he has also edited Tecnica e cultura (1979). Disegno industriale: un riesame was first
published in ‘Nuovi Testi’ in 1976 and then in ‘Campi del sapere’ in 1991.
Former titles:
Disegno industriale. Un riesame – sold in Portugal (Ediçoes 70)
Il futuro della modernità – sold in Spain (Jucar)
Memoria e conoscenza – sold in Spain (Gedisa)
Fabio Salviato in collaboration with Mauro Meggiolaro
HO SOGNATO UNA BANCA
I dreamt of a bank
Genre: Non fiction
Pages: 224
Publication: April 2010
It is possible to get out of the banking and financial crisis in a different way, starting from the bottom and through active
social involvement. The extraordinary story of the Banca Etica proves this.
Banca Etica. The Ethical Bank A bank that is unique in its kind, set up by ordinary people based on an
idea by the pacifist and environmentalist movements, the supporters of fair trade and thousands of
citizen activists. Ten years since its birth Fabio Salviato, the founder and president, tells its story. A story
in the first person covering thirty years of social activism, from the clashes of 1977 to the occupation of
Berla&Griffini Rights Agency – London 2010
the American base at Comiso, from the revolutionary message of fair trade to the 1990s with the boom
of the non-profit sector. Right up to the present day when the Banca Etica model is now ready to be
exported to other European countries.
The book also tells a story that has never been told: that of the network of movements that have
animated the critical conscience of European citizens for decades. Far from the limelight of political
performance and the drawing rooms of big industrialists and bankers, cooperatives, associations and
non-governmental organisations have been able to offer a creative answer and fulfil the needs of
millions of people, creating job opportunities and the integration of marginalised youth, the disabled and
unemployed from the most isolated and depressed areas and the endless suburbs of modern cities.
The project for a new, big European Ethical Bank described in the second part of the book includes
texts by those involved in its creation: the French Steinerians of the NEF foundation, the Mondragon
Basques and also the PARC Palestinians who are fighting to defend their land, as well as the pioneers of
the Israeli Kibbutz.
Fabio Salviato (born in Padua in 1976) is the president and one of the founders of the Banca Etica
(ethical bank) and of fair trade in Italy. He is president of FEBEA, European Federation of Ethical and
Alternative Banks and of Etica Sgr, a savings branch of the Banca Etica group, which promotes ethical
investments. In July 2009 he was nominated for the Board of Directors of Assopopolari, the National
Association of Cooperative Banks.
Mauro Meggiolaro (born in Verona in 1976) is consultant for the Banca Etica group. He was one of
the founders of Etica Sgr and headed the research into corporate social responsibility. In September of
2009, with Claudia Apel, he founded Merian Research, an association that evaluates the ethical
reputation and risks of businesses. He is the financial editor of the monthly magazine, “Valori” and
contributes to the daily newspaper “Il Fatto”.
Giuliana Sgrena
IL RITORNO
The return. Inside new Iraq
Genre: Non fiction
Pages: 144
Publication: 10th February 2010
Exactly five years after being kidnapped, Giuliana Sgrena finds the strength to return to the scene of the crime, Baghdad.
But what she finds is a very different place
Five years after being kidnapped, Giuliana Sgrena returns to Iraq. Timidly at first, to the border regions
controlled by the Kurds, and finally to Baghdad. Going back to areas which are so treasured yet so
dramatic, naturally stirs up a sense of deep shock in her. But the Il Manifesto reporter soon begins to
describe what she sees. Despite the continuous bloody attacks, life seems to have returned to the
rhythms of the Saddam Hussein days. People have once again started eating on the banks of the river
Tigris, women are re-gaining a social and political standing to the point of removing the veil, and even
the social left wing, albeit with difficulty, seems to be re-conquering its previous position.
In short, the new American strategy of liaising with the elderly in the Sunnite villages has in fact erased
the political attention given to armed Islamic fundamentalist propaganda. But on the eve of the
American withdrawal not all the problems appear to have been solved. Giuliana Sgrena tells us why,
with immense journalistic and human sensitivity.
Giuliana Sgrena, correspondent for “Il Manifesto”, has always been a passionate follower of the
situation in Iraq, Somalia, Palestine, Afghanistan and Algeria, with particular focus on the status of
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women. She also works with RaiNews24, the German weekly “Die Zeit”, Swiss Italian radio and
international political magazines. Her published books include: Fuoco amico (Feltrinelli 2005), which has
been translated into several languages; Il prezzo del velo (Feltrinelli 2008), which has also been translated in
Arab countries; Il fronte Iraq, diario da una guerra permanente (manifestolibri 2004).
Former titles:
Il prezzo del velo – sold in Portugal
Fuoco amico – sold in US, Germany, Spain, Algery, Finland, Greece, Sweden
Lorella Zanardo
IL CORPO DELLE DONNE
Women’s body
Genre: Non Fiction
Pages: 208
Publication: April 2010
In Italy women’s bodies are the focus of an unprecedented attack. But some say: enough!
Italian women have remained silent for years. Fortunately, though, not the author of “Women’s Bodies”.
She has rebelled against the diktat of the media using in her documentary the TV images that offend
female dignity on a daily basis.
“Why do Italian women carry on putting up with television that humiliates them so profoundly?” asks
Lorella Zanardo. “Why have they quietly adopted the values of the presumed male model of beauty and
accepted the fact that they work more than any other woman in Europe?” Taking comments made on
her blog www.ilcorpodelledonne.com, Lorella Zanardo perceives that their silence is only in the public
sphere, while in private there are significant changes taking place which are unrecognised by society and
politics.
Lorella Zanardo says, “If in the documentary my aim was to work on the awareness of women, to
stimulate it and if possible expand on it, starting with the damage done by TV, the book also considers a
concrete method of how to educate the young to be critical of the media: “New Eyes for TV” thus
becomes an educational programme for immediate and concrete change.”
Women’s Bodies is more than a manifesto, it is more than a reconstruction of a seasonal struggle against
the arrogance of television, Women’s Bodies is above all the story of a woman who has finally said no to
media abuse of the female body.
Lorella Zanardo, entrepreneur, consultant and vocational trainer, is part of the managing committee of
WIN, an international organisation for professional women based in Oslo. Since its was broadcast on
“Infedele” the Women’s Bodies documentary has received wide acclaim and won a number of prizes.
The Women’s Bodies documentary has been available on line since 7th May, 2009 and has been viewed by
approximately 250,000 people. It has also attracted considerable interest from other countries and when
broadcast during an episode of Infedele it registered a record audience share. The blog
www.corpodelledonne.com has been active since last May and visited by over 2,000 people daily.
Berla&Griffini Rights Agency – London 2010
KOWALSKI
Giovanni Filocamo
IL MATEMATICO CURIOSO
The curious mathematician
Genre: Non fiction
Publication: April 2010
English translation of the intro and of
one chapter available for review
From shopping to the motorways, from the algebra of stilettos to the geometry of soccer, the author look at the world from a
mathematician’s perspective, and shows us how mathematics is all around us – and how extraordinary this is.
“When I tap into my creative mode I can really see that maths is all around me: when I go to work,
cook, collect my change from the café, look up at the sky, when I tie my shoelaces and it moves me
every time [...] I hope that all the researchers, intellectuals, philosophers and curious mathematicians, as
well as those who work towards the broadcast of knowledge will manage to spread the idea that also in
the field of maths ‘where there is a will, there is a way’. I hope that this idea contributes to the
improvement of everyone’s lives.
Enjoy reading this collection of notes and reflections on maths and... don't forget curiosity!”
Giovanni Filocamo has a degree in physics and is project manager of “MateFiteness, a maths
workout”, established in 2006, promoted by CNR and sponsored by the Università degli Studi in Genoa
with the collaboration of the Genoa Festival of Science. He is curator and regular guest on the TV
programme Trebisonda on Rai 3 and is also a staff member of the Science Festival as creator of
educational activities in the field of mathematics. MateFitness collaborates with La Repubblica
(www.repubblica.it) providing the content for quizzes, brain tests and leisure activities based on
mathematics.
Lucia Tilde Ingrosso
NESSUNO, NEMMENO TU
Nobody, not even you
Genre: Noir
Pages: 340
Publication: February 2010
TV rights optioned by La Beffa produzioni srl
“The reason for Ingrosso's success lies in the bitter sweetness with which she describes the double lives of her characters."
Giovanni Pacchiano, Il Sole 24 ORE
September is an unpredictable month in Milan. It can be still weighed down by the muggy summer air or
seem like a prelude to an unforgiving winter. And it is on a September night that Inspector Sebastiano
Rizzo is awoken out of the blue with the news that a murder has taken place in a city centre nightclub.
When Rizzo arrives on the scene of the crime he finds his ex girlfriend Viola there too.
Berla&Griffini Rights Agency – London 2010
Viola Alberici is a successful music producer as well as a beautiful woman: she can be elusive and is both
loved and hated. But to Rizzo she brings back memories of the passion of a twenty year old and is now
also the prime suspect of a double crime. The murder reopens the case of Viola's husband, who died
during the 2005 Sanremo festival in mysterious circumstances. On the idyllic notes of Angelo, the song
that won that year, Rizzo follows up two parallel investigations. And he also deals with an open wound,
an unforgotten chapter of his past.
Is Viola, the love of his life, really a coldblooded murderer? And if she isn't the killer, then who is? Max,
the teenagers' idol? Stefania, the wannabe pop star? Claudio, the ambiguous chauffeur? Luca, the
disgruntled boyfriend? Little Moon the nervy, Chinese-Italian starlet? Or Teo, the young,
unconventional introvert? In a city that chases after itself and its dream of stardom, Rizzo will have to
face up to a double reality which will be unpleasant to him as a police inspector, but even more so to
the man within him.
Lucia Tilde Ingrosso lives in Milan where she works as a journalist for Millionaire. Her first thriller La
morte fa notizia (Pendragon, 2005) was finalist in the Scerbanenco Award (Courmayeur Noir Festival
2006). Kowalski has published A nozze col delitto, the first in her Inspector Sebastiano Rizzo series (now
also published by Universale Economica Feltrinelli) and Io so tutto di lei (2008).
Ilaria Mazzarotta
DUE CUORI E UN FORNELLO
Two hearts, one stove. Sharing the kitchen in two
Genre: Miscellaneous
Pages: 250
Publication: February 2010
If you never know what to cook for supper, if your other half thinks ratatouille is the girlfriend of a Disney mouse
character, if you are filled with horror at the thought of preparing an entire menu for a party of friends, Miss Fiamma is
here to help you and guide you through these, and other, existential problems, providing you with information on the
magical art of living as a happy couple and the prodigious alchemy of the perfect boiled egg.
Miss Fiamma adores cinnamon, baking cakes and has an unresolved issue with roast chicken.
Her partner hates vegetables, loves anything fried and has a somewhat creative approach to clearing up.
Being a woman, she always likes tasting his food in a restaurant. Being a man, he always asks “why do
you have to take things form my plate?”
She likes to cook any vegetable in any way and can rustle up an irresistible tomato sauce to be wiped
clean with a morsel of bread; he, on the other hand, is keener on his mama’s traditional meat sauce. And
he simply hates vegetables, full stop. Anything green must be fried or skilfully disguised (and fried peppers
must be so burnt that they can no longer even be classified as vegetables).
She loves herbal teas; he is a coffee addict.
She abuses cinnamon and spices (but admits she needs to learn to dose salt better) and prefers baked
cakes; he craves whipped cream and puddings that he can delve his spoon into…
It could only have been love at first sight between Miss Fiamma and partner.
In between their first and second courses, a Sunday brunch and a chocolate soufflé, Miss Fiamma and
partner approach life together by getting to know each other’s tastes, creating new family traditions and
sharing their latest culinary discoveries.
A highly amusing, tongue-in-cheek story full of practical advice on how to live happily ever after and
gain even more pleasure from food.
Berla&Griffini Rights Agency – London 2010
Because the kind of love that reminds you of the line in When Harry met Sally “When you realise you
want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as
possible” also flourishes in the kitchen (and occasionally peers into the saucepans).
Make yourselves at home: Fiamma and partner are looking forward to having you for an evening among
friends. Just mind the cats and don’t bring a dessert: Fiamma has already prepared one.
Ilaria Mazzarotta, alias Miss Fiamma, live and works in Milan: she has an Irish complexion, a Tuscan
character and a Roman heart.
Journalist, editor and playwright for Radio2, she has always loved cooking, inviting friends to dinner and
experimenting with creative dishes. She has lived with her partner for some years now and, despite his
pleas, she still puts cinnamon in apple pie and liquor in Tiramisu.
Her websites: www.ozioaffaccendato.com, blog.donnamoderna.com/duecuoriunfornello
Mariano Tomatis
LA MAGIA DEI NUMERI
The magic of numbers
Genre: Non fiction
Pages: 230
Publication: April 2010
There is a trick and it is obvious! Telekinesis, telepathy, clairvoyancy, telling the future, ufology… when explained
mathematically hold (almost) no secrets!
Perhaps, as the famous mathematician Keith Devlin says, if it were explained to us as gossip,
mathematics would suddenly become easy: instead of being the ice queen of the sciences, stripped of her
crown and sceptre, we would finally even recognise her at the bar. A cool type, not so unpredictable
after all and occasionally even amusing.
The aim of this book is to explain how mathematics offers us powerful means not only of easing our
way through everyday life, but also of exploring the border areas of conscience, which groups together
paranormal phenomena, the power of the mind, prophecies, the great enigmas of history and esoteric
symbols.
All of these themes which are often studied in human sciences, also deserve scientific analysis since, in
most cases, they also deal with numbers, mathematical diagrams and precise logical structures.
Mathematics, even when flirting with the irresistible urge to play, reveals the tricks.
The dark side of numbers is revealed through the world of telepathy, clairvoyancy, telekinesis, ufology
and numerology, between the exactitude of science and the fascination of the occult.
Mariano Tomatis (born in Turin in 1977) has a degree in information technology. As a scientist and
magician, he has been researching the paranormal and unresolved cases for years. He contributes to
specialised Italian and international magazines, he is a consultant for radio and TV programmes and
organises cultural events. With Raul Cremona he published L’arte della prestidirigiri… in 2008 and La
Magia della Mente in 2009. In 2008 he curated the display of the new museum in Rennes-le-Château. He
was a guest at the Mathematics Festival 2009 in Rome with a lectio-magistralis called “Mathematics and the
Paranormal” and organises the Festival of Magic in the Mind in Torre Canavese.
Berla&Griffini Rights Agency – London 2010
BACKLIST
PANE E TEMPESTA, Stefano Benni
Rights sold: France
Bar Sport is Stefano Benni. It is as if he had invented it and, over the course of thirty years, it has
become a character of sorts, a hero to which all Benni’s readers, even the younger ones, are deeply
attached. In his latest novel, Stefano Benni brings together a variegated, amusing and melancholic
group of people: Grandpa the Magician, Piombino and Alice, Ispido Manidoro, a series of
unforgettable dogs – from the phenomenal Fen to Billy the maniac – the great Omar, Ciccio Big Italian
Boy, Tore the king of the web, Sofronia and Rasputin, the Trincone brothers, gnomes, the rural-brutal
singer Strazio, Max “Massacre” Settecanál the hunter, Maria Sandokan…
Once again, Benni overturns the genres and shuffles the cards: it is comic, poetic, epic, bitter and
moving, but always when you least expect it.
HAMAS, Paola Caridi
Rights sold: Palestine
An updated research on the history of Hamas, using a combination of news and archive sources, by
Italian journalist Paola Caridi, based in Jerusalem. Passia, The Palestinian Academic Society for the
Study of International Affairs in Jerusalem, has just published an English Language translation of
HAMAS. English Rights in other territories are free and Passia will be happy to grant for free their
translation of the text to whoever wishes to publish it in UK or US!
Le Monde Diplomatique has praised the book and its “insightful analysis”, while the International Spectator
has claimed that "The book is invaluable also in its attempt not to offer fixed answers but to raise
further questions accompanied by some reflections which do not condemn neither praise Hamas"
I MITI DEL NOSTRO TEMPO, Umberto Galimberti
Rights sold: Netherlands, Slovenia
With I MITI DEL NOSTRO TEMPO, renowned psychologist and philosopher Umberto Galimberti
takes 18 modern “myths” of our times as diverse as “the myth of happiness”, “the myth of sexual
diversity” or “the myth of war”, and sets about to deconstruct them for the reader so that we are not
hostage to false ideas. An important book in a time when we tend to become passive consumers of
taken for granted beliefs and ideas. The book stayed for months in the top 10 nonfiction bestseller list,
and sold about 100.000 copies. One of the great commercial potential of this title is the structure, as
one can savour each thought provoking chapter and chose freely what chapter appeals to him next – it
becomes an indispensable, intelligent livre de chevet!
SCINTILLE, Gad Lerner
After publication in November, Gad Lerner’s memoir is still on the bestseller lists and reached its 6th
edition! SCINTILLE is an instructive and moving journey. In an attempt to put together the many and
diverse pieces of the mosaic that make up his cultural, religious and multinational identity, the author
sets out on a journey to the places where his parents and their families were born, lived and died. In so
doing we are taken to present day Beirut in which one can still witness the nostalgia of a Beirut of
wonders not so long gone, to Palestine, to Israel, to Aleppo, and to Jewish Ghetto of Boryslaw in
Poland. What’s more Gad Lerner puts all of himself, his own present family ties and doesn’t not shun
from self criticism for the superficiality with which he lived the conflicts with his father and father’s
family. He is not afraid of exposing his shame in order to do justice to those he misunderstood.