This is the enchanting story of a friendship between an adult and a child that begins with a shared love of comic books (Asterix, Alan Ford, Tex Willer). The adult is the author, the child is Bill Clinton, i.e. his first name is Bill Clinton (surname is another).

The story told here already in itself attracts the reader's sympathy: it is curious, original in its quiet everydayness, simultaneously and inseparably funny and serious. But since (we always tend to forget) no story exists if it is not told, it is especially important to say that it is Ugo Cornia's way of narrating that generates the enchantment. His voice, inimitable, sounds in every sentence, in every juxtaposition, in every concealed burst of intelligence. His writing, in all his texts, is a kind of song that resonates with discretion but infinite precision in our literature. It is made up of such personal timbres, melodies, prosodic trends and rhythms that this author is more identifiable than his fingerprints. It grabs you without you realising it, lulls you, leads you, bamboozles you.

Writing and voice are one and the same in Cornia, the same breath, and always when read at the same time heard. With an absolute degree of subtlety and purity, an indefinable humour little by little, unhurriedly, even wistfully, he offers us a further lens through which to observe life and experience, as if it were the precious gift of a gentle hypnotist.

Ugo Cornia was born in Carpi and lives in Modena. A graduate in philosophy from Bologna, he has taught in various high schools and has taught Italian for many years at I.I.S. Venturi in Modena. His debut novel Sulla felicità a oltranza, published in 1999 with Sellerio, placed him among the most interesting contemporary Italian narrators. His works include: Modena è piccolissima, illustrated by Giuliano Della Casa (EDT, 2009); Autobiografia della mia infanzia (Topipittori, 2010); Il professionale. Avventure scolastiche (Feltrinelli, 2012); Sono sociavole fino all'eccesso. Vita di Montaigne (Marcos y Marcos, 2015); La vita in ordine alfabetico (La Nave di Teseo, 2021) and Le storie di mia zia (Quodlibet, 2023).

The Pharaoh Amasi, XXVI dynasty, was a man of power whose models were neither the ‘golpe’ nor the ‘lion’, animals whose characteristics a prince should manifest, according to Niccolò Machiavelli's famous metaphor, to govern well. Amasi's model was another animal, according to the happy intuition of Giovanni Mariotti: the eel. Shifty, elusive, shifty, non-linear, cautious, slippery, elusive, the Pharaoh Amasi interpreted the role of the powerful in a decidedly unconventional manner, drawing on his own background as a grave robber. Even in death, Amasi remained as elusive as he had been in life. Instead, Mariotti manages to grasp him with this delightful, exquisite narration. In Amasi's interpretation of power and in the exercise he made of it, Mariotti sees a way, however fragile and imperfect, to keep the civilised life of his subjects within the realm of possible happiness: those who lived in Egypt under Pharaoh Amasi were able to experience la douceur de vivre. A power that was not aggressive, exercised more behind the scenes with intelligence than in the limelight with proclamations, anti-expansionist and attentive to the expansionist drifts of others, quiet in time: a breeze of spring blows from this period, recounted by Mariotti as a cast from Herodotus. And it is, mysteriously, the same fragrant breeze that passes through the perfect sentences of this prose that breathes, oxygenates, produces lightness and well-being in the reader.

Giovanni Mariotti was born in Versilia in 1936 and lives in Milan. He worked for many years at various publishing houses. He has translated works by Itard, Gobineau, Schwob, Denon and Nerval. Furthermore, he has collaborated with several newspapers such as L'Espresso, Corriere della Sera and with the art magazine FMR. His works include with Adeplhi Storia di Matilde (2003) and Piccoli addii (2021), with Franco Maria Ricci La carpa del sogno (2017) and La gatta, Borges e il foxterrier (2020) and with La Nave di Teseo the recent I manoscritti dei morti viventi (2023).

Everything that is recounted in these escapes is seen and lost sight of through the mists of history, it is a flap of burning existential truth caught up in the never-to-be-specified web of collective events: the agony of Italy's colonial adventure through the warped lens of a ‘family history’; the trial of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's director, reconstructed in the form of an audition for a play; the rambling confession of the first dissociated terrorist of the German revolutionary left in the 1970s; Russian imperialism repeated in farce in the exploits of an actor called to replace Vladimir Putin on official occasions; the May of ‘68 concentrated and dissolved in the claustrophobic “chamber drama” of a Parisian police station.
In a continuous confusion between background and figure, the individual continues to be, as Georg Büchner said, ‘just foam on the waves’ and the anachronism of the theatre the only place where his scream can still echo.

Attilio Scarpellini, critic, writer and, dramaturg. One of the founders of the Lettera 22 association of journalists and one of the main supporters of the Independent Theatre movement, he has written on the pages of Diario and the online weekly La differenza. He edited the magazine Quaderni del teatro di Roma and collaborated on the theatre column of doppiozero. A dramaturgy tutor at Elvira Frosini and Daniele Timpano's ‘Corpo scritto’ workshop, he has taught at the University of Rome La Sapienza and at the Da.re school of advanced dance training. His writings include L'angelo rovesciato. Quattro saggi sull'11 settembre e la scomparsa della realtà (Idea, 2008), La fortezza vuota. Discorso sulla perdita di senso del teatro (with Massimiliano Civica, Edizioni dell'asino, 2014), Il tempo sospeso delle immagini (Mimesis, 2020) and Figlio di cane (Mimesis, 2024). He talks about images and books at the microphones of Rai Radio 3.

The first volume of the catalogue raisonné of the artist's work is dedicated to igloos. Based on the exhaustive research conducted by art historian Maddalena Disch, it is an editorial project of the Fondazione Merz, with the support of the Scientific and Editorial Committee composed of Mariano Boggia, Luisa Borio, Richard Flood, Beatrice Merz, Frances Morris and Vicente Todolì. The volume is introduced by a text by Beatrice Merz and an essay by Maddalena Disch. Each work is presented with an analytical historical and biographical profile supported by accurate bibliographical references and an exhaustive photographic repertoire.

The volume includes texts by the artist and interviews with Jean-Christophe Ammann, Mirella Bandini, Sergio Barana, Matteo Benvenuti, Achille Bonito Oliva, Germano Celant, Bruno Corà, Danilo Eccher, Corinna Ferrari, Piero Gilardi, Marlis Grüterich, Claudio Guarda, Michael Haerdter, Richard Koshalek, Corrado Levi, Salvatore Licitra, Beatrice Merz, Linda Morris, Fumio Nanjo, Suzanne Pagé, Gabriele Perretta, Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, Mila Pistoi, Barbara Reise, Giuseppe Risso, Harald Szeemann, Laura Tansini, Caroline Tisdall, Tommaso Trini, Paolo Vagheggi, Gemma Vincenzini and Francesco Vincitorio; as well as a biographical note and bibliography edited by the Merz Archive.

The book, consisting of 560 pages and 350 images, is published in two editions, one in Italian and one in English.

The project is realised thanks to the support of the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture within the framework of the Italian Council programme (2023).

Different animals stand out in the world created by Santangelo, a raw, violent world. A wild panther struggles against the submissiveness and carelessness of men, a family of tuna seek revenge before fierce hands that crush, two dogs fight clandestinely without meaning to, a boy still searches for 'tomorrow', together with his grandfather and his hen, his eyes full of hope and wonder as he admires the flying rocket still on the ground. One strolls between past and present, through ancient Rome, in the arena of the Colosseum, among fishing boats overlooking a sea full of blood, amidst floating cages and a sky full of stars.

Story titles: 'The Panther Who Lived Three Times'; 'The Pit'; 'Revenge of the Tuna'; 'The Promise of Return'.

Essay: 'Why write fairy tales today'.

Evelina Santangelo is a writer, editor and teacher of Storytelling Techniques. For Einaudi she published the short stories "L'occhio cieco del mondo" (The Blind Eye of the World) and several novels, among them: "Il giorno degli orsi volanti" (The Day of the Flying Bears, 2005), "Senzaterra" (Landless, 2008) and "Da un altro mondo" (From Another World, 2018; Book of the year 2018 Fahrenheit, Rai Radio 3; Premio Feudo di Maida 17th edition; Superpremio Sciascia-Racalmare 30th edition; Premio Pozzale Luigi Russo 67th edition). His latest book was published by Einaudi in 2023 "Il sentimento del mare" (The feeling of the sea; Costa Smeralda Prize). Again for Einaudi, he edited Terra matta by Vincenzo Rabito, translated "Firmino" by Sam Savage and "Rock 'n' Roll" by Tom Stoppard. His articles have appeared in national newspapers, blogs and weeklies. He collaborates with the weekly L'Espresso.