The first evening will be Friday, June 5 at 8:30 p.m. with Marco Niro presenting his new work "World Novel - the dirty game of power".
It is loosely inspired by the events surrounding the last football World Cup, held in Qatar in 2022, and unfolds along various human and geographical trajectories converging towards the suffocating Middle Eastern desert.
The narrative opens in the soundproof offices of Zurich, where The Slave, a fixer ready for anything, weaves a web of bribes and influences to ensure that the emir of Petrolia secures the tournament and definitive international recognition. On the other side of the world, in Nigeria, young Rashidi sets out to work on the new stadium construction sites with dreams of a better life, unaware that he will become a slave instead. Surrounding this silent tragedy is the challenge between global football icons: Verdict, the champion obsessed with success and his perfect body, and The Wizard, the eternal rival destined to write history. Meanwhile, emerging from the underbelly of a militant peripheral Rome, failed actors Rita and Ernesto concoct a grotesque sabotage against the emir, betting everything on Ernesto’s incredible resemblance to the world's strongest football player.
World Novel uses football as an allegorical lens to confront power. The author attempts to intertwine the fate of those who command with that of those who suffer, revealing the red thread that connects the luxury suites of Switzerland to the dusty construction sites of the stadiums. It is a story that speaks of sport but ultimately overlaps with the ferocity of contemporary capitalism .
The following evenings will feature:
- Riccardo Pro with his latest novel "Blind Time" Wednesday, June 10
- Tommaso Giagni presenting "The Factory and the Cherry Trees" Wednesday, June 17
- Enzo Cecchi brings us "Like a Stone Falling Beside You" Wednesday, June 24
