Le regole dello Shangai

She is a young gypsy woman escaping from her family to avoid an arranged marriage to an older man, he is a watchmaker who is camping on the border and welcomes her into his tent. The meeting inaugurates an understanding made up of nocturnal dialogues about men and life, an exchange of knowledge and visions -she who believes in destiny, in signs, in the god of things, she who trained a bear and loved him as the best of friends; he who feels himself to be a cog inside the machine of the world and that world interprets according to the rules of Shanghai, as if playing were away of bringing order to chaos. An understanding that will last a long time, even from afar, and will end up altering the existence of both of them: a gap in the game, a moving stick.

Erri De Luca sets out on little-trodden paths, on lives that knot and untie. He does so with a dense and light story, where every word opens up deeper meanings, every sentence is a gateway first of all to oneself, and in doing so he invites us to a calm, patient and lucid game, in which even an imperceptible move can change the course of the game.