Rassegnatevi con Rita Lopez

On Thursday, May 7th at 6:00 PM, we will have the fortune of having Rita Lopez with us, born in Bari but living in Rome. An archaeologist and sociologist, she has previously collaborated with La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno and La Repubblica, contributing various articles and stories. She has written for years on the blog Infodem.it, coordinated by journalist Beppe Lopez. She is a member of the Italian Society of Women Writers.

She has published collections of stories including **Vie d’uscita. Salvarsi con i Led Zeppelin, Bach e Nilla Pizzi** (2016), **Peccatori, sconfitti e per di più insolenti** (2019), and **La nostalgia dolcissima e bastarda per ciò che non è stato** (2025); as well as novels **Apri gli occhi** (2019), **Fuori da ogni tempo** (2021), and **La vita sognata** (2023). Her stories are featured in numerous anthologies.

We will discover details about her new work thanks to Bruna De Marinis, who will moderate the evening.

In short, we are in 1950. The basement on Via Don Bosco is damp and too cramped even to hang out the laundry. Regina moves there with Domenico, and in those rooms, steeped in the smell of tobacco from the nearby Manifattura, where they both work, Mercede and Rachele are born. They call it Paradise even though it only carries the name of divine promise. For the neighbors, it is a window to the world, thanks to Regina's Telefunken. It is within those walls that Mercede grows up, able to see what others do not and to feel what others cannot. A feeling that does not give her peace.

In the 1970s, Mercede becomes a mother. Giovanna is the fire that burns beneath the ash, the educated daughter, the restless painter. She wants to emancipate herself through art, but her debt of gratitude to the women in her family becomes a stifling prison. Meanwhile, history unfolds in the background: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the arrival of the Vlora, the long string of femicides shaking the country.

With intense prose, Rita Lopez intertwines the stories of three generations in a game of mirrors between past and present. It will be a final, incredible act of love and premonition that decides who will be saved by finding a possibility of redemption.

During the presentation, Minopolis bookstore will be present to sell copies and for those who wish, to have the author sign them.