"Per gusto e per diletto": Maria Laura Berlinguer

📣 Last event of the IV edition of the literary series featuring Maria Laura Berlinguer with the book "The Dinner of Souls", published by HarperCollins, interviewed by Paola Cirasino.

📕 In Sardinia, on the night between All Saints' Day and November 2nd, tables are set to welcome the deceased. For "sa chena pro sos mortos," the best embroidered tablecloths and festive plates are brought out, and the air fills with the scents of herbs and bread, in anticipation of the souls returning to the homes they loved. All of this has faded from Iride Dessì's memory. She has lived for years far from Padria, the village in the rugged and bright heart of Meilogu, where she grew up. It was only the death of her father that brought her back there. In the grand Dessì mansion, wealthy landowners of Padria, everything remains as it was, and in the memory-laden rooms, one almost hears the ancestors whispering. It is Tata, the woman who cared for her as a child, a guardian of ancient knowledge and secrets never revealed, who guides Iride through the shadows that seem to inhabit every corner and ask to be heard...

By chance or destiny, an old photograph, yellowed with time, prompts Iride to leaf through the pages of the great book of the past and encounter Mimì Oppes, a rebellious great-great-grandmother destined for an unhappy marriage. Thus, Iride retraces a story that tastes like legend, reliving the deep friendship between Mimì and Elisabeth Hope, an incredibly free and independent English woman, and the overwhelming and unexpected love for Emanuele Manca, a legendary bandit renowned in Padria. Constructed like a game of Russian dolls reminiscent of "Wuthering Heights," mixing family memories with imaginative fiction, "The Dinner of Souls" spans centuries and generations, delves into the heart of a mysterious Sardinia where life and death, past and present still walk side by side.

🔎 Maria Laura Berlinguer graduated in Law but soon left her legal career to dedicate herself to communication and institutional relations. Born in Sassari, she lives and works in Rome. In 2016, she founded the site that bears her name, an editorial project dedicated to promoting Made in Italy in the fields of fashion, design, and craftsmanship. She is an ambassador for the Cologni Foundation for the Métiers d'Art. Her writing combines a passion for storytelling with a deep connection to Sardinian roots. Sardinia is not just her homeland: it is a world of traditions, silences, and visions that inhabit her pages.

⏰ On September 1st, at 6:30 PM.

👉 At MAAC Museum - "Rita Santoro Mastantuono" Poetry Garden - Via Enrico de Nicola, no. 1, Ceglie Messapica.
Web: www.facebook.com/pergustoep...