BITTER APPLE

Ursula Vaniglia Orelli’s novel is an investigation into an abyss which is darker than an empty space. She deepens narcissism, obsession and fear  which obscure emotional suffering and mental distress caused by voluntary self-punishment. This real-life story is a harrowing trip into anxiety, violence, psychiatric medication, threats of the past, secrets and betrayals. It ranges from decaying Rome, at the end of the First Italian Republic, to Angola torn to pieces by civil wars and bloody diamonds. It leaps over the excesses of Milanese upper-class society to describe the sober life in a hospital. The corrupt love  intertwines with the chronicle of a redeeming therapy. The absence of appetite is the literal meaning of an existential, social and foodborne disease called anorexia. A voluntary abstinence from eating, calories, feelings, memories,  consciousness… Is nothingness the ultimate aim of this physical and moral ascesis? Sin and redemption, hybris and catharsis, are in the seed of a fruit as red as passion which taste like gall.

title:     MELA AMARA
author:     Ursula Vaniglia Orelli
preface:    Noa Bonetti
postface:   Andrea Rocchitelli
collana:    fabula curated by Giorgio Bona
genre:    novel
editor:     IRIS4 EDIZIONI – Roma
pages:     128

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