Enrico Franceschini, historic foreign correspondent for the newspaper La Repubblica and writer, arrives in Sardinia for a double appointment which will see him present his new book The right move, a thriller set in Odessa in 1918, in bookshops from 18 June by Baldini+ Castoldi.
On Monday 1 July at 7pm the author will be in Cagliari where, in the garden of the “Giuseppe Siotto” research foundation (via Dei Genovesi 114) he will present his book in dialogue with the cultural operator Giannella Delrio.
The next day, at 8pm, the author will be in Sant’Antioco, in Piazza De Gasperi, guest of the Iklos association where he will talk about his latest work together with the journalist, chess player and writer Luca Neri. The event is organized in collaboration with the Municipality of Sant’Antioco.
The book. Odessa, Ukraine, 1918. While the civil war between reds and whites rages, seven men are standing against a wall, facing the firing squad. A moment before the Bolshevik soldiers open fire, an officer notices a name on the list of those sentenced to death and asks if by any chance it is the famous chess player. The man answers yes. The officer is not convinced. “Let’s play a game,” he suggests. «If you lose it means you’re lying and you’ll be shot. If you win you are truly the chess champion and we will let you go.”
The condemned man is Ossip Bernstein, a Ukrainian Jew, a brilliant business lawyer in Moscow and one of the strongest chess players in the world. Lenin’s revolution expropriated him of all his possessions. When he was arrested he was trying to board from the Black Sea city to escape to Europe with his wife and children. But the chess game on which his life now depends marks the beginning of an extraordinary adventure, which passes through the Paris of the Roaring Twenties, is hit by the collapse of the Wall Street stock market, is overwhelmed by the Second World War and the Holocaust, to end during the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union found themselves adversaries in a challenge that could trigger a conflict with nuclear weapons: and even in that case the outcome depends on a chessboard, on which it is necessary to make the move right.
Inspired by a real-life character, a thriller about the endless escape of a wandering Jew through the twentieth century. And on the cruelest of games: chess.
Enrico Franceschini (Bologna, 1956) was a correspondent for the newspaper «la Repubblica» in New York, Washington, Moscow, Jerusalem and London. Among his numerous fiction and non-fiction books are the trilogy of noir novels Low Tide, Ferragosto and Un’estate a Borgomarina.
For Baldini+Castoldi he published The end of the empire, last trip to the USSR (2021) and How to travel the world for free, a journalist with a suitcase (2023).
Information: [email protected]
The event is organized with the support of: Department of Public Education of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, Culture Service of the Municipality of Cagliari and Fondazione di Sardegna.
In collaboration with the Iklos association and the Municipality of Sant’Antioco.
