Ho rubato la pioggia

Elisa Ruotolo’s Ho rubato la pioggia is the fresco of a superstitious Campania province. Stories of people who live among bottles of fizzy drinks, tin trophies from local tournaments and gold sold at home. The motherless boy in Guardami lives with his father and with Silvia, a girl who lives by cleaning other people’s houses and who settles down with them. Cesare, the family friend who is too shy to make himself understood, falls in love with her but cannot say so. The young narrator insinuates himself into the silent exchange… In Io sono Molto Leggenda a constantly losing soccer team wins when the trainer’s son substitutes the centre-forward, and it wins so often that they start calling him Molto Leggenda (Much Legend). A talent spotter for a major club signs him up but the boy loses himself in the big league… Il bambino è tornato a casa tells of two sisters, one slow and one quick, who make spicy preserves and dream along with South American telenovelas, and of Matteo, a child who disappears and will maybe come back one day…

Elisa Ruotolo has a true narrative gift. Her stories build up a world with tranquil ineluctability, and hang it in those little scraps of life that resemble destiny. It is a rare thing today to find a debuting author with both writing skill and stories to tell. It happened to her.

Elisa Ruotolo (Santa Maria a Vico, 1975) has published stories in two anthologies. Ho rubato la pioggia is her first book.

June 2010 – 160 pages – 14 x 20 cm

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