speaker: Helen Berry, (Exeter)

discussant: Hannah Dennett

Join us on Wednesday 12 May at 5pm for a lively discussion of Luca Rastello and his works.

All welcome, but please take a moment to fill in this short registration form. To join the event click on this link.

Speakers: Andrea Brondino (University of Warwick), Luca Chiurchiù (University of Macerata), Cecilia Ghidotti (Loughborough University in London) and Lorenzo Marchese (University of L’Aquila).

During his intense yet too-brief career, Luca Rastello (1961-2015) was an activist, a journalist, and a writer. He was part of the autonomous movements that imposed themselves on the Italian political landscape of the troubled seventies; an experience which he will write about in his most famous novel, Piove all’insù. He developed and spread new ways of receiving refugees of the Kosovo war into Italy; La guerra in casa, his most successful book, represents a key point of reference for anyone interested in the study of the conflict. He worked for the Gruppo Abele; his last novel I Buoni critically investigates this experience. He carried out inquiries on topics such as international drug trafficking (Io sono il mercato), the exploitation of migrants (La frontiera addosso), and the controversial construction of the high-speed railway (TAV) projected to connect Turin and Lyon (Binario morto). Few other contemporary writers have managed to translate such a diverse and rich life experience onto the page. Even fewer have succeeded in expressing deeply held non-conformist beliefs through radically non-partisan critical thought, in both fiction and non-fiction alike. This panel explores and discusses Rastello’s writing, to which a monographic section of a forthcoming issue of the journal Contemporanea will be devoted.