In the small square in front of the Mondadori Bookstore in Avellino, on Thursday 4 July, at 6.30 pm, there will be the presentation of Francesca Maccani’s book, “Agata del vento”.
During the event, Francesca Maccani will talk to us about her book, a compelling and emotional story. A question and answer session will follow, where you will have the opportunity to learn more about the author and her creative process.
‘Agata del vento’ is a novel that tells the extraordinary life of Agata, a woman capable of facing life’s challenges with strength and determination, finding her own path against all adversity.
Inspired by the untold true story of a healer from Lipari, Francesca Maccani has written a powerful and evocative novel that immerses us in the magic and arcane traditions of the Aeolian Islands and still speaks to us today of passion and rebirth, of hunger for love and the courage to seek one’s own path.
Lipari in 1902 is a wild island, rooted in myth and coloring the future of its children with America. Here, women are creatures of the sea and land, fishermen who know the secrets of the turquoise waters and the animals that inhabit them, who dominate the winds and smell of salt.
Among them is Agata, a beautiful and restless girl who lives with her mother and brothers; a family like many others, hers, torn apart by her father’s departure for the New World in search of fortune. Agata is fifteen years old, and she is not a teenager like the others on the island. Some call her majara – witch – but she is much more: she does not limit herself to curing ailments and the evil eye with spells, she has the ability to glimpse fragments of the future, heal incurable diseases, and dominate the elements.
It is a gift that comes to her from Aeolus, the lord of the winds who has his tomb right in Lipari. Accepting it is not easy for Agata, who dreams of a freedom out of reach for a female and has just known the irresistible call of her first love.
But the gift is a part of her that she cannot erase, it is a destiny, and discovering its origin will be the beginning of a journey into her past and that of her island.
Francesca Maccani, teacher, lives in Palermo. She published the essay La cattivo scuola (Tlon, 2017, Donna del Mediterraneo award). On the blog “Giudittalegge” she writes online reviews.
