Author:
Alessandro Leogrande
Publishing house:
Feltrinelli
Date of publication:
7-10-2022
Alessandro Leogrande, rather than providing answers, tries to recount the many shards that generated the most serious ecological and industrial crisis in Italy’s memory, giving us one of his most intense reportages.
Taranto is often at the center of the national news, a profound symbol of the contradictions of southern Italy and its defeats. A city of alleys, sea, people from other southern shores, a city of factories and suburbs, a city of bad politics and often aborted dreams of redemption-a complex world that is hard to grasp. The parable of Cito–former fascist slugger, telepredicator, convicted of outside conspiracy in mafia association, who became mayor by popular acclaim after the collapse of the First Republic–in many ways anticipates the Berlusconi season and shows the other side of an idea of development marked by heavy industrialization. Alessandro Leogrande observed, scrutinized, narrated. He has angrily and lovingly written a book that leaves its mark, a journey in stages that focuses on a few pivotal moments of the last two decades of citizenship, up to the hot summer of 2012. A reportage that narrates without discount a piece of Italian territory that has become the mirror of the whole of Europe, of how in the midst of the twenty-first century people struggle to combine health and work, the preservation of the territory and the value of life itself.
Preface by Nicola Lagioia.