BOOKS. “Maria Malva” by Emiliano Domenici

Maria Malva, the protagonist of the novel, on a random morning at the end of spring, performs a shocking act that will forever mark the lives of the five people present by chance in front of her at that moment. There is a suspicion that the existence of this young, unassuming and silent woman had already crossed paths with the five figures narrating the episode; perhaps, they had even shaken her life as she had shaken theirs. Who is, then, Maria? Very little is known about her, and her figure can only be reconstructed through the intertwined narrations of those who witnessed the brutal event. Following “The Uncertain Years,” where Dominici painted a fresco of Italy from the Sixties to the early Two-Thousands, this “Maria Malva” focuses on the contemporary, in a vibrant and rich Italy, capable of generating deep loneliness as well: a fate shared by the eponymous protagonist of the novel and the people she meets along her path. A multi-voiced story where each voice has a version of what happened, giving life to a small social mystery that has no real solution. In a brilliant interlocking game, Emiliano Dominici manages to offer us a glimpse of Italy, following a tradition led by the masters Fruttero&Lucentini, and the story of many lives, and one that burns.

Emiliano Dominici (Livorno, 1969) is an English teacher. He has worked in theater as a director and playwright, and is the founder and member of the music group Volontré with which he released the album “Instant songs” in 2023. In addition to numerous stories in magazines and anthologies, he has published the collection “Anche meno” (Erasmo editore 2015), and the novels “Impara l’arte” (Erasmo editore, 2012), “L’antipatica” (Valigie Rosse 2019) and “Gli anni incerti” (effequ 2020).