Acqua di sole
Bari, 1950s. The lives of a peasant family of florists and a rich family of perfumers are destined to meet in an unexpected and irreversible way. A new great Italian saga.
It is Christmas 1955, Bari and Puglia are covered in thick, icy snow, the likes of which has not been seen for a long time. There is much turmoil at the Gentile home: a baby girl is about to be born. But the mother’s scream makes it clear that something has gone wrong. The Lord, however, gives grace and after the fear they can celebrate. Also because work is impossible: because of the snow, it is impossible to cultivate the fields and keep up with the flowers that have given the Gentile family a living for generations.
Just as, in another form, they give a living to the Fiorenza family, Bari’s most important family of perfumers. Every month or so, Adriano, the eldest son of Claudio, the great perfumer, leaves the city and goes to the Gentile family to buy the flowers from which the essences will be made. This is not the only reason, he also wants to see Margherita, his secret love, wife of Giulio Gentile and mother of Michele Gentile, a very intelligent seven-year-old boy. During one of these trips Adriano brings his daughter Teresa, who immediately becomes Michele’s friend.
And it is precisely the bond with Teresa and Michele’s precocious intelligence that make the family decide to send him to study in Bari, thanks to a little help from the Fiorenza family at Teresa’s public school. There, in addition to his friend Margherita, Michele will meet Vittoria, a few years older than him, a girl with a proud and enterprising character…
Bianca Rita Cataldi was born in 1992 in Bari where she graduated in Modern Philology and attended the Conservatory. She works as an editor, proofreader, ghostwriter and editorial consultant. She periodically holds courses in creative writing, editing and proofreading. A finalist at the Premio Campiello Giovani 2009, she made her debut in 2011 with the novel Il fiume scorre in te. Her second novel, Waiting Room, was a finalist for the Villa Torlonia Prize and won the Maria Messina Literary Prize. She is an ordinary member of EWWA (European Writing Women Association) and the International Women and Poetry Movement. In 2018, she published her first novel I fiori non hanno paura del temporale (HarperCollins).
