In these pages, Giulia intertwines her destiny, experienced or more often only imagined, with that of a man who cannot be hers because he belongs to History, experiencing firsthand the winds of utopia and the disasters of totalitarianism, the surprises of a relationship never truly lived, the impossible desire to be normal. And in its poignant freshness, it lets a unique voice emerge, suspended and forgotten like that of his violin.
Giulia Schucht faces the pitfalls of the twentieth century dressed in white, surrounded by carefree disorder. A talented musician, a citizen of a land, the Soviet Union, ruled by a man of steel, she is a beautiful she-wolf living on the edge of an abyss. Daughter of Apollon, an aristocratic revolutionary devoted to Rousseau, she has many sisters, many hopes, many possible paths. But when she meets Antonio Gramsci and gives herself to him hopelessly, she stumbles upon love’s blind spot. Around this passionate bond, made of absences and profound happiness, flourish night walks and solitary benches, long train journeys and bare hotel rooms, party officials and letters from prison. And two children, disheveled and barefoot, baked by the sun. From St. Petersburg to Rome, from Cagliari to Vienna, from Moscow to South Tyrol, Lucia Tancredi masterfully weaves her web, giving life to a character as literary as she is tragically real. In these pages, Giulia intertwines her destiny, experienced or more often only imagined, with that of a man who cannot be hers because he belongs to History, experiencing firsthand the winds of utopia and the disasters of totalitarianism, the surprises of a relationship never truly lived, the impossible desire to be normal. And in its poignant freshness, it lets a unique voice emerge, suspended and forgotten like that of his violin.
