Marta Cai's writing is difficult to frame: one can only be taken aback by the innovation of her style, of her thought, of her approach, and of the relationship between the word and the sense it makes. The unusual mixture of intelligence and sensoriality, the mirroring between syntactic development and perceptive gestures of this author give us these 'Brasilampi'. They are texts reminiscent of the so-called 'chronicles', short compositions without genre, epiphanies of the every day or reflections on the highest systems where everything is allowed, except the obvious, solidly present in Brazilian literature but not so codified in Europe. Marta Cai, who recently moved from Italy to Brazil,  does not tell us about Brazil, she does not force it into categories, into descriptions, into interpretations, but she allows herself to be permeated by it. She thus reaches a fascinating space, as much geographical as interior. She enters (and so we do) into an ancestral glade of non-understanding, of pre-verbal impact with what exists. She registers in its presence, like a highly sensitive seismograph, her own native illuminations, as if they were lullabies (when in fact they are vertiginous lexical and syntactic acrobatics). Thus from Brazil flash unexpected flashes, expertly set up in a hidden but powerful, circular, omnipresent structure. We cannot call them "short stories", although they are peopled by characters caught in peculiar moments; we cannot call them "chapters of a novel", although the author composes them in a unitary narrative arc; we cannot call them "sketches", although the writer also proceeds here, as in her previous works (Enti di ragione, SuiGeneris, 2019 and Centomilioni, Einaudi, 2023), with rapid angles, unexpected divarications, unpredictable coring into the depths. We can call them 'Brasilampi', and so we will.

Marta Cai was born in Canelli in 1980 and has lived for some years in Curitiba, Brazil. Some of her short stories have been published in magazines ("inutile", "il Reportage"), in anthologies (Ti racconto una canzone, Arcana 2022; Overlook loop, Collana Trema Edizioni Arcoiris 2023; Splendere ai margini, Oligo Editore 2023) and in 2019 in the collection Enti di ragione (Edizioni SuiGeneris). For Einaudi, he published Centomilioni (2023), premio Campiello finalist, and for Tetra Edizioni Tipopsicanalisi (2023).

In the monologue "Clic", by the unforgettable author of "Code", the scene is hinted at as a hospital. He exists, evoked by a mere name, which makes him a very powerful character, a certain Dr. Dickmans. The monologue speaker apparently freewheels about various themes and issues, produces his own reflections on himself, the world, the situation he is experiencing. But we follow this voice with growing disquiet, as it becomes clearer and clearer to us at every step that the narration itself is the story, not what the voice says. Indeed, the voice is often interrupted by a sign/sound, i.e. a 'click', which breaks its course just as it simultaneously breaks our mental reconstruction of the scene.
The continuous fractures are thus as much of the monologue-giver as of the reader/listener. This simple but ingenious 'click' binds us to the monologue more than any other empathic, or narrative, or visual, or experiential gimmick.

Mario Giorgi was born in Bologna in 1956. He has written texts for radio, theatre, TV. He has published "Codice" (Bollati Boringhieri 1994), "Biancaneve" (Bollati Boringhieri 1995), "Sulla torre antica" (Portofranco 1998), "23 : 59" (Rai Eri 1999), "Torpore" (Portofranco 2001), "Alter E" (Un fagiano) (:duepunti 2010), "Società del Programma Spaziale" (CS_libri 2016), "Configurazione Alieno" (CS_libri 2019), "Fiori" (Tiemme 2019).

Since her recent literary debut, this author's stylistic maturity and ability to structure the narrative in time has attracted literary attention. Francesca Zupin constructs a limpid tale in perfect balance between pain and grace. Recomposing in a kaleidoscopic sequence a forty-year period of lives, Zupin draws up a story of undercurrent loves, almost friendships, silent deaths, disenchanted relationships. However, the enchantment is actually all profound and it is made up of powerful feelings and disillusions which move beneath the characters' lives like distant, invincible magnets. The fulcrum lies in the character of Nina, a figure who will remain in the considerations she causes in readers and in their hearts. Zupin elegantly sketches the places that host these small and intimately grand affairs, the seaside town, its gentle and poignant meeting places, two balconies, a pastry shop, certain steps. With equal finesse she conjures up distant places - the United States, Germany - with departures, returns, a sailing ship, arriving letters. The confident tone of this writer's voice, a singular blend of sumptuousness and sobriety, is a new and beautiful presence in our Italian literature.

Francesca Zupin was born in Trieste. She graduated from Milan's Bocconi University and completed a master's degree at the Holden School. She works in an international scientific university in the Middle East. Her first novel Salvamento (Bollati Boringhieri Editore) was published in 2022.

Bodo lives with his mother near the Lorettoberg. Bodo and Mom work in their workshop: washing, ironing. Bodo likes ironing very much. Whenever possible, before going to sleep, he looks out of the window and the breeze coming down from the Lorettoberg comforts him. Bodo falls asleep melancholy and serene. He is simple-hearted, but has sometimes unsettling enthusiasms, kept calm pharmacologically. Bodo loves Mom. Bodo falls in love with a customer. When she and her family return to her country just over the border, Bodo's love takes over.

Franco Stelzer's mastery gives us a marvellous character, a presence that is not to be forgotten. The text, with Central European veins, is inlaid with a profoundly Italian language, as beautiful as a snow crystal. A tale whose precise and measured dose of enchantment makes the prose and its rhythm capable of painting such a creature, Bodo, adhering to her delicate dementia with all the complexity and intelligence of the voice that narrates it. His empathy towards the figure he is inventing is total, with a hint of cruel harshness that concerns Bodo, but above all, exemplarily through him, all of us. This love story is a powerful whisper. The absolute pain that runs through it, however, only comes in second, because the winner, on a knife's edge, is instead a mysterious and inalienable happiness.

Franco Stelzer was born in 1956 in Trento, where he returned to live in 2002, after long stays in Bologna and Germany. He worked for many years as a teacher of Literature at a linguistic high scool. He was a translator from German (Perutz, Ungar, Tumler, Gruenbein), he writed the volumes of short stories Ano di volpi argentate (2000), Il nostro primo, solenne, stranissimo Natale senza di lei (2003), published by Einaudi, and the novel Matematici nel sole (2009), published by Edizioni Il Maestrale. In 2018, Einuadi published his last novel Cosa diremo agli angeli.

Giorgia Tribuiani's luxuriant literary output seems to revolve around a central point that is brought into direct focus here: the author wrote these pages gazing at the eyes of Medusa. But instead of being petrified, she has managed to creatively take us to this perturbing place.  The short and dry chapters of this novel take us ruthlessly into a tragedy with no way out, namely the scene in which the suicidal person awaits impact. The lingering trauma, however, is that of the train driver, who can do nothing against the inescapable approach of the crash, in spite of all the attempts required by the intervention protocol. The lost life of the suicide creeps into the driver's life like an element nested deep within. The stark, linear chapters in which this tragedy unfolds alternate with other chapters in which we see the traumatised man trying to cope with this disruption in his life that has seeped into him.

The author accompanies her text with an excellent interview on post-traumatic stress disorder with Dr. Domenico De Berardis, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Director of the Giulianova (TE) Mental Health Centre.

Giorgia Tribuiani was born in Alba Adriatica in 1985. She has a degree in Publishing and Journalism and a master's degree in Marketing and Communication. She has collaborated with several newspapers and edited online communication for some multinationals. She currently teaches creative writing and holds literary consultancies. She has published Guasti (Voland, 2018), Blu (Fazi, 2021), Padri (Fazi, 2022), Superstar (Tetra Edizioni, 2022) and has appeared in the anthologies Abruzzesi per sempre (Edizioni della Sera, 2019), Polittico (Caffè Orchidea, 2019) and Nuvole corsare (Caffè Orchidea, 2020). For Audino Editore she is the author of a creative writing manual on the uncanny genre, Writing the Uncanny. Models, Techniques, Strategies (2023).

Gherardo Bortolotti is both a refined and a dodgy writer. He manages to create extraordinary hypothetical worlds in this geometrically perfect and sentimentally deep composition. These novels are just drafted, they are digressions that instantly hit. Bortolotti here takes from Calvino and Perec, allowing him to bring the astonishment and tremor of our fragile, at times useless, lives to the page. We face yet another proof of this author’s humble and great talent. 

Gherardo Bortolotti was born in Brescia in 1972. Visionary and experimental, he has published Tecniche di basso livello (Laveri, 2009), Oltre il pubblico: la letteratura e il passaggio alla rete (Nuova prosa, 2014), Le storie del pavimento (Tic Edizioni, 2018), Low. Una trilogia (Tic Edizioni, 2020), Romanzetto estivo (Tic Edizioni, 2021).