"I am not narrating nostalgia for an era, but for an illusion." This is what Laura Morante said at Pordenonelegge while presenting the national preview of "Dieci storie pop" (La nave di Teseo), a collection of short stories set in 1960s Rome.
"Beneath the appearance of the economic boom lay the horrors that would emerge just a few years later: property speculation, the suffering of the South, poverty, political tensions," she explained. "Throughout the ten stories, a crescendo of small melancholies can be felt, and one senses that the illusion is crumbling."
Morante chose Centocelle as the setting due to a paradox: "In a working-class neighbourhood it was harder to maintain the illusion, because problems were experienced firsthand, yet at the same time it was also easier to fool oneself because people were less informed about the world."
The book is "a hybrid between a short story collection and a novel, with shared characters and a shared narrator." Music is one of its central elements: "Pop songs become imbued with our memories, our experiences, our emotions," said the author. "Mozart remains himself — it is he who triumphs. Popular songs, on the other hand, become steeped in what we have lived through."
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