Francesca Melandri: “Piedi freddi”

 

The author Francesca Melandri presents her book Piedi freddi (Bompiani 2024), in conversation with the writer Thomas Brussig, current Rome Prize winner of the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo.

Francesca Melandri masterfully interweaves human destinies with the great history of Europe. Andrei Kurkov

What does war mean? And what happens when you fight on the wrong side? Francesca Melandri tells the story of her own father – and gives voice to the silence of an entire generation. A deeply personal search for clues: an indispensable book for understanding our present.

A military hospital in Venice. Disinfectant, feverish sweat, the unbearable stench of gangrene. The son lies in the farthest bed, asleep. The mother lifts the blanket at the bottom. Two legs, two feet. One, two, three, she counts the toes – up to the tenth. She carefully puts the blanket back: at last she can faint.

In the winter of 1942/43, Italian soldiers fled from the Red Army in shoes with cardboard soles, tens of thousands froze to death. The ‘retreat from Russia’ is etched as a trauma in Italy’s collective memory – including in Francesca Melandri’s family. Her father survived it.

But it is only when images and places of war in Ukraine become omnipresent at the beginning of 2022 that she realises that it is primarily Ukraine where her father has been. What did he really experience there, why was he there at all?

Francesca Melandri’s ‘Cold Feet’ is a touching dialogue with a loved one: an unflinching book about what war does to bodies and minds yesterday and today, about storytelling as an art of survival – and our historical responsibility in the face of the attack on Ukraine.

The evening will be held in Italian and German.

 

Francesca Melandri, born in Rome in 1964, is one of the most highly regarded Italian writers of our time. She has made a name for herself in Italy as an author of scripts for film and television. Her first novel Eva dorme also brought her to the attention of a large German-speaking readership. Her second novel Più alto del mare was shortlisted for the Premio Campiello and was hailed as a masterpiece by Italian critics. Her third novel, Sangue giusto from 2017, which won the Premio Sila ‘49 and was shortlisted for the Premio Strega, was named International Novel of the Year by SPIEGEL and has been the subject of numerous reprints. Francesca Melandri works with the ‘Guardian’ and other European newspapers. Her books have been translated into many languages.

Thomas Brussig, born in Berlin in 1964, had his breakthrough in 1995 with the novel Helden wie wir. This was followed by Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee (1999), Wie es leuchtet (2004) and the musical Hinterm Horizont (2011). His works have been translated into 30 languages. Thomas Brussig is the only living German author who has reached an audience of millions with his literary work as well as with a cinema film and a stage work. His most recent novels are Das gibts in keinem Russenfilm (2015), Beste Absichten (2017), Die Verwandelten (2020), Mats Hummels auf Paarship (2023) and Meine Apokalypsen (2023)
He has received several awards and prizes. In 2024/25 he is fellow of the Rome prize at the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo, in 2021 he has been fellow in residence at Casa di Goethe. He is a member of various juries and is also a founding member of Lübeck’s ‘Gruppe 05’. In the summer semester of 2012, he was the holder of the Poetics Lectureship at the University of Koblenz-Landau. Thomas Brussig was the initiator of the German national writers’ football team in 2005.

In collaboration with the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo