- Author
- Erri de Luca
- Title
- Not now, not here [Non ora, non qui]
- Translator
- English edition not available
- Publisher
- Feltrinelli, 2008
- Info
- 91 pages, € 6,00
Life in memories
Not now, not here, Erri de Luca’s debut work, introduces the reader to a poetic style that, during the years, has become a pleasant habit for many readers.
Memories filled with melancholy emerge through quick brush strokes. Childhood, adolescence, the first stages of youth; the author brings the reader to the dawn of adulthood, recalling some significant figures such as his mother, the faithful household, a friend who had died at a young age; the old house lost through the alleyways and the new one, too cold and too plush. The report on those missing presences concludes with the memory of his wife, passed away after few years of marriage. By this last episode, the writer’s formation is somehow complete and every thread of his past can be seen as something present. Everything can be lost in our life; everything ends and nevertheless it continues to be a part of our ephemeral state. In virtue of this, it can be fixed in the written page.
This is, as always, a brief but intense piece of writing, occasionally touching for its ever fertile lyricism.
Translation by Francesca Pietroboni (edited by Sabrina Macchi)
