Aperitivo d'Autore con Antonio Franchini

Certainly! Here is the English translation of the provided Italian text:

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**Aperitivo d'Autore** returns to make a stop in **Massafra**, at a new location for the **Volta la carta** format: the **Masseria Ciura**, an authentic gem at the gates of the Ionian town.

On **February 20**, we will have the honor of hosting **Antonio Franchini**, an important editorial director and fine writer, author of one of the most beautiful Italian novels of 2024: **_The Fire Inside You_** (**Marsilio**). With skill and balance, excess and discretion, Franchini has written a memoir populated with unforgettable characters surrounding an undisputed protagonist: his mother.

The Neapolitan writer’s book is achieving great success and numerous accolades, including the Mondello Prize, the Naples Prize, the Fahrenheit Book of the Year, plus securing second place in the Campiello Prize and a position on the 2024 Quality Chart of La Lettura. In Massafra, the author will converse with Vincenzo Parabita, artistic director of Aperitivo d’Autore.

The event will be enhanced by the gastronomic offerings of **Le Vetrine del Gusto** and the fine wines of **Cantine Amastuola**, which customarily open the evening. The event starts at **7:30 PM**.

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**Entrance is by ticket exclusively in presale on the Postoriservato circuit at the following link [https://www.postoriservato.it/biglietti/aperitivo-d-autore-con-antonio-franchini-20-febbraio-2025-masseria-ciura-massafra-23132.html](https://www.postoriservato.it/biglietti/aperitivo-d-autore-con-antonio-franchini-20-febbraio-2025-masseria-ciura-massafra-23132.html) and at authorized sales points**
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For information: 380.4385348 - aperitivodautore@gmail.com

*i.• THE AUTHOR •*

Born in Naples in 1958, Antonio Franchini made his debut as a writer in 1992 with “Camerati. Four Novellas About Growing Up.” For Marsilio, he published: “Quando vi ucciderete, maestro?” (1996), “Water, Sweat, Ice” (1998), “The Abusive Man” (2001), “Chronicle of the End” (2003), “Lord of Tears” (2010), “Memories of a Bookseller” (2011), and “Read Possess Sell Burn” (2022). In 2020, for NNE, he released the short story collection “The Old Fighter.” “The Fire Inside You” (2024) is his latest book. He lives in Milan and works in publishing. Since 1991 at Mondadori as an editor, in 2015 he took on the role of editorial director at Giunti.

*i.• THE BOOK •*

“The Fire Inside You” tells the life and death of Angela, a woman with an impossible character. A woman who emblematically embodies all the horrors of Italy, leaving none aside: “indifference, racism, classism, selfishness, opportunism, shapeshifting, mediocre culture worse than ignorance, resentment...” This woman was the author’s mother. The novel is an investigation into the life, passions, and hatreds of a woman, in search of a possible explanation. The form is that of a comedy, the content that of a tragedy. What manifest or hidden experience, what frustration, what hidden wound can make us so hostile, angry, resistant to any form of reconciliation? What reason, simple or complex, lies behind Angela’s fury: the war that marked her as a child? A father who died too soon or a mother who died too late, sentencing her own daughter’s youth and maturity to unhappiness? An age-old inferiority complex or belonging to the oppressed Southern culture whose causes Angela wants to assert against the hated usurping North? Or, more simply, is the internal fire that consumes her devoid of any reason, like the hidden heart of a volcano? Antonio Franchini, with skill and balance, excess and discretion, has written a novel-memoir filled with characters surrounding a protagonist always at the center of the stage. An excessive and unpredictable heroine, capable of alternating dramatic and obsessive tones with decidedly comic moments. It is a story that mixes Eduardo-style comedy with chthonic fury, the urgency of a visceral outburst with the studied rhythms of a performance, a true play.

*i.• THE LOCATION •*

The Masseria Ciura was built in the early 1600s in Massafra at the behest of the baron Ciura family. It is one of the best examples of a noble residence and is located on a 60-hectare estate. A piece of land chosen by the Ciuras to create a plantation that told the story of life itself: extraordinary oil, oranges, mandarins, and lemons that, like an embodied dream, grew under the blue sky overlooking the Ionian Sea. The Masseria Ciura was a place of community, an extended family where the children of the surrounding lands were taught in the village school, an act that gave form to a hope: education as a key to redemption. The Ciuras had put down roots in this land, and the land had responded with magnificent fruits, symbols of a love that grew over time, nurtured by patience and care. And, like any story with roots in the past, Masseria’s story has also seen the passage of time, and with it new faces, new hands continuing to trace the path of a tradition never abandoned. Over the centuries, the site has undergone several transformations, especially during the Baroque period when many Apulian masserias, including Ciura, were expanded and beautified, becoming countryside residences for nobles and wealthy landowners. The buildings were enriched with architectural elements of value, such as carved stone portals, barrel and star vaults, and internal courtyards. In the 19th century, the masseria continued to thrive thanks to agricultural production, especially of olive oil and wine. Today, the figure of the current owner Stefano Montanaro and his family is that of those who took up the legacy of a dream. Stefano not only guaranteed the continuity of the agricultural production that the Ciura family had started, but made Thomas Ciura’s dream his own: transforming the masseria into a place of genuine hospitality. Every event celebrated at the masseria is an unforgettable journey, an explosion of colors, scents, and sensations that tell the story of rural life with a modern heart capable of blending past and future.

*i.• THE WINES •*

The Amastuola vineyard, in the Crispiano territory, is a unique work in the world, subject to studies and international acknowledgments, capable of combining production, aesthetics, and tradition. A harmonious succession of vine rows arranged like accentuated and parallel waves that smoothly flow for three kilometers, in a movement interspersed with 1,500 century-old olive trees arranged in twenty-four islands across the vineyard surface. The vineyard rows were planted based on the design conceived by the great Spanish landscape architect Fernando Caruncho. Amastuola Organic Wines are the result of artisanal processing that strongly recalls tradition but uses advanced technologies. Meticulous attention to details and limited yields to obtain quality organic wines that tell, with their authentic essence, the love of the owners for this extraordinary land immersed in the heart of the Mediterranean. Currently, the wines produced are the following: Centosassi (primitivo), Lamarossa (primitivo), Primitivo (primitivo), Onda del Tempo (primitivo, aglianico, merlot, cabernet sauvignon), Aglianico (aglianico), Vignatorta (syrah, primitivo), Capocanale (merlot), Ondarosa (aglianico), Bialento (fiano, malvasia), Calaprice (sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, fiano), Dolce Vitae (malvasia bianca di Candia), Negroamaro (negroamaro), Ro’ (100% chardonnay). Numerous are the accolades: among many, the Primitivo has achieved 17 national and international titles.

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