Description
The main course divides a Sardinian town near the sea, but it is as if it splits the world in two. On the long uphill road stands the Savoia Hotel, a meeting place for the local bourgeoisie, professionals, politics, and its ambitions. On the opposite side, a bit hidden among narrow alleys, lies the Delfino Bar, a refuge for the unemployed, defeated dreamers, men and women who seem to have given up on everything except the habit of meeting every day. Between these two parts of the world intertwine the lives of Dino, Maria, Gianni, Vittorio, and Giulia. There are those who have lost their job and with it their identity, those who seek escape in love, those who chase success without managing to fill the void they carry inside, those who dream of leaving the province, and those who cannot find the courage to stay. Around them moves an entire community, masterful in observing, judging, remembering, condemning – intrusive and relentless. With powerful, ironic, and cruel writing, in a skillful blend of the low and the sublime, Simone Azzu constructs a great choral novel about social illusions, desire, failure, and the difficulty of truly changing. A contemporary tragicomedy, inhabited by unforgettable and unmistakable characters and voices, that lucidly stages the fragility of our lives and the tenacious stubbornness with which we continue to live them.
