One hundred years after the assassination of Giacomo Matteotti, ordered by Benito Mussolini, the ANPI Section of Ravenna “Natalina Vacchi” organizes the presentation of the novel “The summer before tomorrow” by Alfio Bernabei, originally from Dovadola, who lives and works in Great Britain. The presentation will be held in the presence of the author Wednesday 19 June, at 5pm, at the Sala Ragazzini (adjacent to the Basilica of San Francesco), in Largo Firenze in Ravenna.
Even the name of Giacomo Matteotti resonates in the pages of this enthralling book historical novel set largely in Ravenna in the summer of 1922 when a protest against fascism breaks out abroad which risks ruining the plans for the march on Rome. The boycott, in England, of a ship with a crew entirely made up of fascists produces a crisis which brings to the foreground Romagna figures who actually existed, including the Rimini captain Giuseppe Giulietti who, after the terrible attack on his own life, will say that he was “the first Matteotti saved by a miracle.” A little-known story that could have changed the fate of Italy headed towards the abyss of dictatorship.
Alfio Bernabei, writer and journalist, worked for the BBC and his articles appeared in various newspapers including L’Espresso, Panorama and Il Fatto Daily. He is the author, among other things, of the volume “Italian exiles and emigrants in the United Kingdom 1920-1940” (Mursia 1997) and of the essay “Fascism and anti-fascism in London’s Little Italy” (Pacini Editore 2021). For British television he directed the documentary “Dangerous Characters”, which won the “Best Research” award at the Festival dei Popoli in Florence and his exhibition dedicated to Matteotti is currently open in London in the Charing Cross Library Westminster.
