Author:
Marta Aidala
Publisher:
Guanda
Release Date:
27-08-2024
Take her life and go – to understand herself, find a future, not to go down any more but to stay. These are the reasons for which, one morning in May, Beatrice leaves Turin to move to the mountains. Those mountains that, she is certain, are women even though they often bear male names. Women like her, who as soon as she arrives to the refuge of the Barba, a gruff man with a mysterious past, feels rejected, as woman and foreigner (“strangera”). Marta Aidala has the courage of a clear voice that lets gestures and events speak, the noises of the forest, the smells, the light of a sky high above the peaks. And she knows how to recount in the most concrete details a new epic, that of a girl who goes after her own freedom despite hesitations and fears, a girl who seeks herself on the trails and among the men of the mountains, in a world that she feels is hers even though the old traditions look at her with distrust. With fear and curiosity, as Elbio looks at her, the young herdsman with whom Beatrice will establish a profound bond, made up of reluctance and outbursts, in that fragile and poignant intimacy that arises between two people who mirror and recognise themselves.
When the summer ends, however, Beatrice decides not to follow Elbio to the valley, instead staying with the Barba in the refuge, a place that now, perhaps, she feels she can call home. But the snowless winter will reveal to her an unexpected mountain, pushing her to put everything into question, and questioning her once again about her future, the person she wants to be and the places where she feels she belongs.