Sembrava bellezza

Welcoming us into the pages of this novel is a woman, a writer, who, after feeling marginalised for many years, has finally found success. She is living a roaring time of redemption, which she tries to hold on to, but every day it slips away a little more. Just like her daughter, who refuses to speak to her and has moved far away. Torn between resentment and dismay at the passing of time, she is caught up by Federica, her closest friend from high school, when she returns to look for her after thirty years. She also brings back her older sister Livia – a goddess of supernatural beauty, an unattainable model in the eyes of their awkward sixteen-year-old selves – who, following an accident, has remained trapped in the mind of an eternal girl. As was the case when they were teenagers, their thoughts return to mirror each other, repel each other and mix together. The protagonist searches the past for the truth about herself and Livia, while trying to regain control of her damaged life: her work, her loves. Livia was and remains an unfathomable mystery: a miracle of beauty preserved in unawareness? Or a freak show phenomenon? Enveloped in the coils of a bewitching tale, we follow the protagonist on a journey that is both private and generational, inner and concrete. And while she aspires to freeze the moment so as not to lose her glory, Livia’s fate is there to remind us what can happen when youth crystallises into an immobile present: an 18-year-old in the body of a 50-year-old, a butterfly trapped in amber. Sembrava bellezza is a novel about the merciless passing of time, and how, in retracing it, we can find forgiveness and tenderness, first and foremost towards ourselves. A novel about mothers and daughters, about friends, in which the author stages relationships, between women and beyond. A novel animated by a gaze that triggers the fuse of reality and, without sparing any venom, understands every human weakness.