Tuesday 13 May 2025 (21 pm), at Collegio Nuovo, we venture into stories of borders, where History enters forcefully into literature, with the writer Marco Balzano, now also in bookstores with Male child once again for Einaudi.
«For years I had been thinking of writing a story about the eastern border – explains the author – because no territory like Trieste has seen fascism, nazism and – even if only for a few weeks – a communist regime alternate with brutal violence and without interruption».
It is not the first time, in fact, that Balzano deals with historical themes, "frontiers" and war: before that with I stay here (winner of the Prix Méditerranée in France and of several prizes in Italy, including the Bagutta and the Mario Rigoni Stern Prize, and finalist for the Strega) had told the story of a teacher who insists on remaining in the town of Curon, in South Tyrol, in spite of the forced Italianization (and fascistization), continuing to teach clandestinely.
With Male child (the rights for the German edition have already been purchased) tells the story of a “private matter”, that of Mattia, born in Trieste in 1900 to an unknown mother (perhaps Slavic) and a watchmaker who repeatedly claims that “Trieste belongs to everyone” and who does not intend to reveal, not even after the death of the woman who raised Mattia, the identity of his biological mother.
The boy, nicknamed Bambino for his childish physical appearance, joins the pack of black shirts also to look for his real mother, almost fearing to find her among the “s'ciavi”; he leaves for the Albanian countryside, about which Balzano observes that little has been written, and gradually finds himself implicated in a context of violence in a city also marked by the presence of the infamous Risiera di San Sabba, transformed into a concentration camp. A violence that knows particularly brutal episodes, such as the violence used by fascist and nationalist provocateurs, in front of the small children returning from a summer camp – children, in fact – against their parents (in 1919, in via della Madonnina) and reaches up to the forty days of occupation by Tito's army and the horror of the foibe.
The author will be in conversation with Anna Modena, who taught, among other things, Contemporary Literature and Publishing at the University of Pavia, and Pierangelo Lombardi, President of the Pavia Institute for the History of the Resistance and the Contemporary Age, as well as President of the Historical Scientific Committee of the Fondazione Memoria della Deportazione.
The meeting is held in person (Aula Magna of the Collegio Nuovo, v. Abbiategrasso 404, Pavia) and remotely. Registration is mandatory by May 12th for in-person participation; by May 13th, 18.30 pm for those who wish to connect remotely. The event is also broadcast live on Facebook on @collegionuovopavia.
The initiative is part of the recognized training activities, subject to possible confirmation by the individual College concerned and member of the CCUM.
