A MEDIEVAL SAGA DI ALESSIA FERRARI DREAM
Esce il 27 giugno 2019 la versione in lingua inglese del romanzo UNA SAGA MEDIOEVALE DI ALESSIA FERRARI DREAM – Opera a cura di Gioia Lomasti & Marcello Lombardo – Traduzione a cura di Alessia Ferrari Dream – Immagine di copertina e illustrazioni di Simona Cipollina Martorella – INFO ORDINI YOUCANPRINT disponibile sui migliori store di vendita e nelle librerie fisiche anche nella versione e-book – An engaging novel, with all the ingredients to capture every reader’s heart and mind…
PREFACE
A novel that seems to be born as from a grandiose daydream, from a colourful and lively vision of a world away from us, governed only by the free laws of fantasy: a world that has not and does not want to have anything realistic and that, precisely for this reason, the author places it in a Middle Ages far from history, within wholly vague and indefinite geographical coordinates. It is a fabulous and dreamlike Middle Ages – as the story is told to a large extent. And the characters, if on the one hand they are acquiring, in the course of the narration, their precise and increasingly recognizable physiognomy, on the other hand they participate in this climate of dreamlike abstraction, so much so that they are deprived of a proper name; or, to say it better, they take the name of their function in the narrative, of their role or of their task as a substitute for identification. Here is the Minstrel and the Councilor, the King and the Princess, the Tambourine, the Count and so on: that, identified in this way with their principal characteristic, seem almost to assume an absolute and emblematic value, as if they were the figures, immobilized once and for all, of imaginary playing cards.
And to a variegated and fascinating card game it actually resembles this novel, with the characters appearing and disappearing, approaching and moving away, seeking each other out and meeting each other, each obeying their own specific function in the narrative mechanism or, which is the same, to one’s instincts and inclinations. Thus there are the “good” and the “bad” ones, the humble and the noble, the brave and the cruel one; and each one, always, with his own recognizable “face”: a face that – one would say – the narrator “sees” very much alive in front of her, just as if she belonged to a real individual in flesh and blood, to the point of being able to do it “See”, page after page, also to the reader. Moreover, the images that accompany the book have no other meaning: they are portraits, made with great skill by the cartoonist and artist Simona Cipollina Martorella of the main characters of the story, aimed at guaranteeing them a strong visual and almost plastic consistency, in addition to the narrative.
Thus the action takes place, before the eyes of the reader, as on the screen of a film, or rather as on the pages of a comic book; and every episode acquires a relief that, although it has nothing – as we have already said – of realistic, has the colored and lively evidence of a freely fantastic vision. In this view, however, nothing is left to chance: the movements of the characters and their mutual relations obey a narrative device calculated down to the smallest detail; and each figure plays a precise role and carries out a peculiar function.
At the centre of this mechanism, as if it were the invisible engine, there is a very particular character, who, absent from the action because put to death right at the beginning of the story, is nevertheless almost bound to each of the protagonists, concealingly influencing the decisions and feelings. This is the beautiful Healing Witch, perhaps the most fascinating figure of the whole novel: an intelligent and very sweet woman, affectionate and sensual, she is the reference point, positive for the “good” and negative for the “bad” ones, of all the other characters . In her, the ideal of joy of life, of free sensuality and of delicate lightness which clearly inspires the narrator is manifested and incarnated; and therefore, in some way, the profound meaning of the entire “game” of the novel is revealed, which on this ideal is measured and in this ideal finds – it seems – its last, most persuasive justification.
Edited by Prof. Giangiacomo Amoretti
Professor of Italian Literature at Genoa’s University
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
AND ARTISTIC CURRICULUM
Alessia Ferrari Dream was born and raised on the Ligurian Riviera. Since she was a child she has a marked imagination, which she cultivates by reading a lot and leaving her own daydreams to space out on every occasion. Her richer production period begins, however, a few years ago, when she devoted herself to writing almost every day; composes poems and writes stories. She arrives at the great challenge of the novel in May 2016, which requires constant effort for a year and a half. Meanwhile she continues to propose poems in verse and short fiction, obtaining excellent consents in many competitions throughout 2017: selected for an anthology of hermetic poetry, fourth place in the competition of Sarzana 2017, for what concerns poetry, while second place both in Morano Calabro and in the Competition “Lunanera, chimere quotidiane”, plus two honorable mentions for her stories. “A Medieval Saga” is the first of her novels, published by YoucanPrint in April 2018, a forerunner for a writer who will soon establish herself in the contemporary literary scene. In autumn 2018 she received an honorable mention at the FIRENZE AWARD and a plaque honoring the “Antico Borgo” award in La Spezia.
