Wednesday 08 May 2024 – 7.34pm
Stefano Tamburini’s book entitled Man and the sea. The presentation will be curated by Paolo Benesperi and the literary blogger Patrizia Lessi, with the editor of Il Foglio literary Gordiano Lupi also present.
The book tells the story of a diver killed by a shark, it tells a story that happened 35 years ago: the death of Luciano Costanzo, 47 years old, port worker and former footballer from Massetana, Piombino, Acireale, Livorno, Savoia and Paganese
“Man and the Sea is a truth novel that recounts the terrible events that followed February 2, 1989. That day death and terror emerged from the sea of an unusual winter that seemed like May. The jaws of a shark took the life of a diver and caused Piombino, the Archipelago and half the Tuscan coast to fall into a film where everyone was an actor and spectator. And unfortunately it was only the beginning of an absurd story: the extraordinary nature of the events was taken as a pretext to cast doubt on them, to construct a toxic, devastating, humiliating narrative. In that scenario, in fact, there were those who tried to smear the diver by attributing to him an escape to collect a life insurance policy that otherwise did not exist. Or a fishing trip with explosives gone wrong. It is the story of sloppy and bad faith journalism in the service of lies defeated by the more genuine and quality one ready to fight to ensure that a man who had already died in the worst way was not killed a second time. And with him also a little of our civil life.”
The work boasts a preface by Giangiacomo De Stefano, producer, author and film director, son of Gennaro, a journalist who was the victim of an illegal arrest in Abruzzo by a policeman who was later unmasked and convicted, thanks to an exhausting investigation which Tamburini, a few years after the Costanzo affair, took part with great commitment.
De Stefano writes that “Tamburini’s book shows us two different ways of understanding journalism. Through the tragic story of Costanzo we talk about a passionate investigative work that contrasts those who want to mystify the reality of the facts to overturn them. On the opposite side there is It is in fact journalism that tries to exploit the clamor of the story, giving voice to those who have an interest in denying the only possible truth, that is, that it was a shark who killed Costanzo who scares us and who paints us as threatening elements that have always been present in nature: sharks in the sea, wolves or bears in the woods. Tamburini shows journalism with a very high civil value and does so through a book that immerses us in the events as if it were a television series, where the open ending makes you want to go on page after page.”
