L’inverno della Lepre Nera

Nadia is nine years old, has a mother who never hugs her and a father of whom she has only distant memories. But one morning, just after Christmas, her mother makes her put on a pair of boots and allows her to take with her only the object she cherishes most: the notebook in which she writes down the characteristics and habits of all animals, because in their world of feathers and fangs, sounds and songs, she finds an order that comforts her. Nadia and her mother Rosa set off together on a long journey to the cabin of Uncle Tone, who lives with his dog Fumo in the middle of a large forest, far away from everything. It is here that Nadia learns about the glistening snow and the voice of the mountains, here she hears the legend of the Black Hare, whose relentless race causes the seasons to change, here she begins to understand the weight that weighs on her mother’s shoulders: certainly not that of the backpack with which she sets off every morning for long solitary walks, but something much more serious and unspeakable. It is in the thin mountain air and amid the deep snow that Nadia and Rosa must find the strength to melt the cold that grips their hearts and the courage to take their first steps along the path of life once again. Angela Tognolini makes her debut with a narrative as genuine and solid as the trees that are its silent characters. L’inverno della Lepre Nera is a novel about a mother-daughter relationship and a sick and violent love, and it is a courageous meditation on mountain life with its enchanted aspects but also its closures and harshness. But above all, it is a story open to the power of magic, which also gives us the wisdom of the Black Hare: in the darkest moment of winter, you have to know how to smell the air, find the south and start running towards spring again.