Description
Lidia is twenty-three years old, facing an important audition and many sleepless nights: those spent in front of the mirror looking at herself without recognizing who she is. She is one of the most talented cellists at the conservatory in Palermo, but for some time now she has felt trapped in the wrong body. Yet that is the Lidia that her parents raised and that Dalila loves. Dalila, who seems like the princess of fairies, her pianist girlfriend, with whom she will face the test that could take her to Berlin. Maybe. Because when another opportunity arises, that of embarking on a transition journey, even the greatest career dreams seem to pale in the face of the hope of finally feeling like oneself. Several kilometers away, in Prague, Leo lives between motel rooms and nightclubs, dragging behind him a sense of loneliness and defeat, until one particularly desperate evening when he meets Selene, a salvific and fatal drag queen, dual like the soul of the city they inhabit. As their precarious lives intertwine, Leo will come to wonder if she helped him only to lead him more surely to ruin. In the fullness and emptiness of the stories of Lidia and Leo, which reflect and chase each other through the years and distances, Martino Giordano injects a powerful mixture of ferocity, misery, pity, and indulgence. His debut novel digs deep, exploring the geography of two cities full of contrasts and invaded by music, where an unequal struggle takes place: that against oneself.
– Winner of the “Premio Iannas” 2025.
– Winner of the “Premio Laura Grasso” for LGBTQIA+ literature 2025.
