Description: In January 1943, as Italy is exhausted by the war, eighteen-year-old Berardino Santilli decides to escape. Having grown up in a wealthy but emotionally cold family in the Abruzzo Apennines, he leaves behind a life of farm work, religious education, and repressed desires. Taking the very first train of his life, he arrives in L’Aquila, convinced that the city can offer him a different existence. The impact is harsh. The city he dreamed of as a place of freedom and opportunity reveals itself to be starving, contradictory, and deeply scarred by the absence of men at the front and a poverty that corrodes everything. Disoriented, Berardino moves through cafés, offices, shady hotels, and ambiguous encounters, discovering the weight of money, lies, and desire. Every experience chips away at his innocence, forcing him to confront his own body, shame, and the need to be accepted. L’Aquila thus becomes a labyrinth-city, the stage for a abrupt coming-of-age without any safety nets. La Divisione Gioia is a novel of growth and disillusionment—a portrait of Italy at war stripped of all rhetoric, where becoming an adult means crossing a fracture and learning that joy, sometimes, is a painful division.
Author's name: Alfonso Francia
ISBN: 9791298597761
Publisher: Controversi Edizioni
Publication Date Year: 2026
Publication Date Month: May
Publication Date Day: 4th
Page count: 248
Format: paperback
Description: In January 1943, as Italy is exhausted by the war, eighteen-year-old Berardino Santilli decides to escape. Having grown up in a wealthy but emotionally cold family in the Abruzzo Apennines, he leaves behind a life of farm work, religious education, and repressed desires. Taking the very first train of his life, he arrives in L’Aquila, convinced that the city can offer him a different existence.
The impact is harsh. The city he dreamed of as a place of freedom and opportunity reveals itself to be starving, contradictory, and deeply scarred by the absence of men at the front and a poverty that corrodes everything. Disoriented, Berardino moves through cafés, offices, shady hotels, and ambiguous encounters, discovering the weight of money, lies, and desire. Every experience chips away at his innocence, forcing him to confront his own body, shame, and the need to be accepted. L’Aquila thus becomes a labyrinth-city, the stage for a abrupt coming-of-age without any safety nets.
La Divisione Gioia is a novel of growth and disillusionment—a portrait of Italy at war stripped of all rhetoric, where becoming an adult means crossing a fracture and learning that joy, sometimes, is a painful division.
Language: italian
Link to publisher's page: https://www.controversiedizioni.it/pr...