Marina Morpurgo

Marina Morpurgo (Milan 1958) is a former journalist who has written seven books for children, published by Feltrinelli. For Astoria, she has written the collection of short stories Sono pazza di te (ma fino a un certo punto) (I’m Crazy About You (But Only up to a Certain Point), La scrittrice criminale (Criminal Writer, 2011) and Risorse disumane (Inhuman Resources 2012). She is currently gleefully devoting herself to literary translation from English.

Il passo falso

(The Wrong Step)

Astoria Edizioni , March 2022

Who is really the esteemed Professor Emilio Rastelli? What mysterious past is concealed in the mists of his senile dementia? A hidden truth surfaces from the man’s confused mind, which brings back one of so many forgotten stories from the time of the Resistance, told in a true historical framework and reconstructed with the help of period newspapers and documents.

Professor Emilio Rastelli is a retired paediatrician with a difficult, reserved personality, who’s never wanted to talk about his family. But now that senile dementia is beginning to impair his self-control, a much darker shadow begins to show itself from behind his bad temper. The professor seems tormented by a blurred recollection that frightens him very much, he mutters something about having done something very wrong, and alternates between moments of lucidity, agitation and delirium, which his wife and carer struggle to contain. There is a vague clue, however, because Professor Rastelli often runs away from home and every time is found roaming secretively along the east coast of Lake Como. His wife gets a bee in her bonnet about unveiling the mystery, and so discovers that Emilio Rastelli doesn’t exist: after the war he took on a false identity, exploiting the fact that many registry offices in northern Italy had been destroyed. But behind Emilio is there Giuseppe, a Jewish young man, the son of an English woman and an Italian man, or Antonio, a young blackshirt soiled with many crimes?

È solo un cane (dicono) – La storia continua

(It’s Just a Dog (So They Say))

Astoria Edizioni , March 2020

A story of true, touching symbiosis. A delicate, original memoir.
With realism and humour, the author tells us about the strong, complicit affection that binds a dog and its owner and at the same time she explores a much older event, that of her relatives who escaped deportation during the Second World War.

Entertaining and humorous, to be read over an afternoon, possibly while patting your dog’s head.
A revival of this short but profound and moving story in a new extended edition. With period black and white illustrations.

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