La mia casa altrove
Amila, born in Zvornik, Eastern Bosnia, lives in Trieste, the city where she fled from the war as a child. She is a university student who feels and lives as an Italian despite not having formal citizenship. Norina, born in Buie d’Istria/Buje, now Croatia, is an elderly woman who arrived as a refugee in Trieste following the handover of her hometown to Yugoslavia. Although she has returned to her homeland, she has never been able to feel athome anywhere. The two women meet during a summer. That same summer, Simon, Norina’s beloved Australian nephew, arrives at the old isolated Norina’s house in the Karst, in search of his family origins and in particular to investigate the disappearance of a man called Franco. It is a novel about a great youthful love, the rivalry between two elderly sisters divided forever by emigration, the rediscovery of one’s roots and the possibility of always thinking of a new beginning.
Federica Marzi was born in Trieste, to a Slovenian father and an Istrian mother. Her unpublished collection of short stories East-North-East was nominated for the 2009 Calvino Prize by the Readers’ Committee. In 2016 she was awarded the First Prize at the International Literary Competiton Lapis Histriae at 27th edition at Forum Tomizza with the tale Crepe (Cracks). She lives in Trieste where she teaches German language in middle and high school.
