“Beyond and higher. Manual for pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago” (Edizioni dei Cammini) is the new book by the deputy director of “Roma”, Roberto Paolo, which will be presented on Friday May 10that 6 pm, in Torre del Greco, in via Comizi 13, at the Church of San Giuseppe Calasanzio. The journalist Maria Consiglia Izzo, who experienced the Camino firsthand, and the journalist Mario Pepe will discuss it with the author. Singing performances by the soprano Martina Sannino and the tenor Gianluca Pantaleone are expected. On the piano, maestro Giuseppe Polese.
THE BOOK
Put a journalist along the Camino de Santiago, over a thousand kilometers on foot from France to Cape Finisterre, the extreme tip of Europe. The result is a travel reportage, halfway between a guide for the pilgrim and the intimate diary of an experience which is at the same time an extreme undertaking, a sociological investigation and metaphysical speculation. “Beyond and higher” is all this: the report of a month spent on the so-called French Way, from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela and beyond, up to the Finisterre lighthouse. The descriptions of the route and places, advice on equipment, where to sleep, what to eat, how to wear a backpack and how to solve common daily problems are intertwined with the stories of the many travel companions met on the Camino, each with their own human story but all united by profound characteristics that make them a sort of itinerant community. And in a reportage that is also an inner journey, the intimate reflections that a similar experience inevitably arouses on life, death and human nature could not be missing. The result is an ironic and disenchanted, adventurous and exciting, philosophical and introspective story, which tries to draw useful lessons from the experiences lived along the Camino de Santiago to face the daily journey of everyday life.
THE AUTHOR
A professional journalist, he is deputy director of the historic newspaper “Roma”. In his career he has mainly dealt with crime and judicial news in the difficult criminal reality of Campania, carrying out investigations that have had national resonance. In 2010 he was awarded the Anti-Camorra Commission award by the Campania Regional Council for journalists who have distinguished themselves in their commitment against organized crime. He played himself in Abel Ferrara’s docufilm “Napoli, Napoli, Napoli”, presented out of competition at the 2009 Venice Film Festival, and in 2014 he published “The case is not closed. The truth about the Siani murder” (Castelvecchi).
