When does one stop wishing?

When does one stop wishing? Meeting with Domenico Starnone and Gianluigi Simonetti

Sunday 13 October | 5.30 p.m. | Piazza del Sole, Bellinzona

Sconfinare Festival 2024

With Domenico Starnone we will look for trespasses starting from his latest novel, Il vecchio al mare. The frontiers to be identified, tested and crossed will be those that divide youth from adulthood, and maturity from old age; those that divide reality from invention, truth from fantasy, the past from the memories we have of it, desires from the ghosts of desire. And finally, the frontiers that divide twentieth-century literature from the literature being written now: Starnone knows both, has practised and crossed both, and is the ideal guide to explain what remains the same and what is destined to change.

Domenico Starnone

is one of the best known contemporary Italian writers. In 2001 he won the Strega Prize with Via Gemito. In addition to having written for Il Manifesto, l'Unità, La Repubblica and Corriere della sera (among others), he has edited several screenplays for film and television. Successful films have been made from his books, including La scuola by Daniele Luchetti, Auguri professore by Riccardo Milani, Denti by Gabriele Salvatores and Lacci by Daniele Lucchetti. His latest novel, published by Einaudi, is entitled Il vecchio al mare (2024).

Gianluigi Simonetti

teaches Literature at the University of Lausanne. He studies 20th century Italian poetry and the postmodern novel; he collaborates with Il Sole 24 Ore and La Stampa, and is co-director of the cultural magazine Snaporaz. His latest book is Caccia allo Strega. Anatomy of a literary prize (nottetempo, 2023).