The third volume that will compete for the 2024 edition of the Asti d’Appello Prize has been selected: it is Una piccolo pace by Mattia Signorini, published by Feltrinelli and finalist for the Wondy Prize.
In 1933, shortly after Hitler’s rise to power, a father travels with his son, driven by the desire to return to the places in Flanders that have marked his life. Only once he arrives in Ypres, the former German soldier is able to retrace a story that, despite the atrocity of the war, resembles a fairy tale that one simply must rely on. At the center is the figure of the English rifleman William Turner, motherless, who enlisted at the beginning of December 1914 with the belief that his voluntary service had the aim of saving lives, helping to end the conflict within a few weeks . Reality tears these illusions to shreds, but, although tired of fighting, William Turner persists in keeping faith with his purpose. Supported by a courage completely different from heroism, he finds friendship and even meets love at the front. A powerful and moving novel, inspired by the true story of two boys who alone stopped the war. Two ordinary soldiers who on opposite fronts gave life to the Christmas Truce of 1914 between the English and German troops, during which the soldiers left the enemy trenches to celebrate together in no man’s land, recognizing each other’s common humanity. A small peace within the horror of the Great War.
This is the reason for the choice of the Award by the Ghost Readers: “Inspired by an episode that actually happened, Mattia Signorini’s novel offers pages of relief at a time when the winds of war are blowing strongly. The author reinvents, with the simplicity and delicacy that animates the soldiers, an extraordinary and courageous event. One hundred and ninety pages for a war story that overlooks peace, narrated with a poetic and light language. Moving and timely.”
Mattia Signorini has published the novels Lontano da tutto cosa (Salani, 2007), The Symphony of Short Time (Salani, 2009; Tropea Prize), Ora (Marsilio 2013; finalist for the Stresa Prize) and Le fragili attese (Marsilio, 2015). He is translated in France, Germany, Spain, Israel and South America. For Feltrinelli he published Stelle Minori (2019).
The book will be available as soon as possible at the Astense Library for Prize members, who will be notified.
More information on the Award available on www.premioastidappello.org
