Matteo Nucci. Going Home
25.11.2017 from 16:00 to 17:30
“You can never go home.
When Odysseus finally wakes up on the island he longed for twenty years, he doesn’t realize it. When he returns to his palace, no one except a dog recognizes him—a king so missed yet so forgotten. And when, after the famous challenge with bow and arrow, he wipes out all his adversaries—Penelope’s suitors who’ve lived off him for years—at that moment as we sense everything is finally over, we realize that Odysseus is a new man at home and that, ultimately, his Ithaca no longer exists. But maybe it never really existed.”
Matteo Nucci was born in Rome in 1970. He studied ancient ideas and philosophy and published essays on Empedocles, Socrates, and Plato. In 2009, he translated and edited Plato’s Symposium for Einaudi, and in 2013, also for the same publisher, Le lacrime degli eroi, a narrative essay on crying in Homer’s world. Novels that have been published by Ponte alle Grazie include: Sono comuni le cose degli amici (2009, among the five finalists of the Premio Strega), Il toro non sbaglia mai (2011), È giusto obbedire alla notte (2017, among the five finalists of the Premio Strega). His stories have appeared in anthologies, magazines, and e-books. He has authored cultural reportage works and articles on a regular basis for venerdì di Repubblica which can also be found online at minimaetmoralia.it. He also curates a site devoted to information on and the culture of bulls: www.uominietori.it.
This lecture is part of the public programs of the exhibition Anna Boghiguian.