Europe, after the virus: populism has spread everywhere, leading several countries to form a new, sovereigntist alliance: Nova Europa. Among them is Italy, governed by a coalition known as The Trinity. In the five years since its rise to power, The Trinity has radically changed the country’s landscape. Trinity personalities and politicians have created and taken advantage of a Unified Network – one giant, nationalised and state-controlled social media network – to spread their message, their propaganda, their pseudo-scientific ideas of racial purity, and have gained the consensus of a vast majority of Italians. How? Exploiting their seemingly miraculous social network, capable of manipulating public opinion – and effectively placing all major cities under martial law, with militia patrols in every neighbourhood and executions of dissidents being streamed live on the Unified Network.
I would be lying if I didn’t think this novel was almost a little too timely, given the events across Europe, and Italy specifically, but Mattia Conti’s dystopian novel Gli Amanti Sommersi (The Sunken Lovers) may also be very much the kind of book that readers need – in Italy, in the UK, in the book reading world – right now. The text, or at least, its present-day story set in the 2030s, opens with Glauco, a young researcher, who will become the pillar upon which a new Racial Theory is built, and his meeting with the Representative, a shadowy, snake-like, monstrous yet-familiar power behind many thrones (my translation).
Glauco noticed his own handwriting, and had felt the need to point something out: ‘Mr Representative, sir, what you ask for isn’t there. We can’t find it, I did my best, in Italy and here. Nothing, no trace of it. I don’t think it is scientifically provable that… No race gene, no difference in parameters. It’s impossible to develop a racial theory…’
The sentence hung in mid-air as the Representative had connected his thumbs and was waving his fingers in a ray of light. A dark dove flapped its wings against the wall.
‘What do you see, Glauco?’
Your hands, their shadow, the reflection.
‘You see light and the absence of light. You call it shadow, but it does not exist. It is an absence, Glauco. I asked you to prove an absence.’
In India, he explained, the Hindu nationalists were working on a new generation of children. A pure race, created through Ayurveda, the promise of taller, stronger, lighter men who would take the reins of the country, creating a dictatorship based on one specific criteria: genetic superiority. The Indian experiment had created what people of all ages, places, and time had craved: faith.
They would be doing the same. Together, they would create a new faith, capable of restoring good old Italy to its imperial splendour. Roman forums of glass and steel, a technological humanism, and at last, a heroic rediscovery of Italianness.
The Indian model. Science at the service of the greatest dream.
‘There are so many things in motion, Glauco. I am here to build a New Silk Road that can connect our little boot to great China. These are miraculous years. We have brought order back to our beautiful cities. We have put effort into rebuilding families. We are blazing a trail for a country that lost itself. When I read your dossier, I knew that you must be part of our team.’
Conti’s choice to focus on one of the ‘villains’, in a novel about grey areas of morality and ideology, is fascinating, and one that is sometimes incredibly hard to follow – morally, physically, ethically – but follow him we do, exploring some of the true banalities of evil and where the latter finds its roots.
The other two main characters are Marzio, former soldier for the Trinity and one of the current leaders of the Dinosaur rebellion (so called because of their refusal of all digital means and tools, in favour of old school messaging and coordinating systems), and Giovanna, a young and avid supporter of the Trinity and its social media presence, radicalised after the death of her teenage crush. Both characters have direct experience of the horrors of the Trinity, and that urges them to start working against it, in any way they are able to do so by joining the Dinosaurs.
‘How can we be certain you weren’t the one who betrayed him?’ the Toad insists. He crushes the cigarette end, squeezes white smoke from its ashes. His companion coughs behind him, both stare at her.
Commander Toad pushes a file towards her. The signature is crossed out with black ink. His fingers are like knotty twigs. He points at a sentence highlighted in yellow.
‘Giovanna Crespi revealed to us that Clemente Rispoli, aka Pago, was involved in certain types of deals. He was pulled over for a routine check. This is the report from the militant you wounded. Certain types of deals?’
She sits, one hand on the other. She knows that if she looks at him directly with her violet eyes he will look away.
‘So? What kinds of deals did you talk about?’
She did not betray Pago, but she cannot prove it. They’ll come to some sort of decision. The Commander coughs, covers his mouth with the tip of his fingers. A puff of smoke, he holds her gaze much better than she expected. ‘You have a lot of explaining to do, actually. Did you know the man who pulled you over?’
‘Yes. Well, no. I knew who he was, but I had never met him. He’s Clara’s boyfriend, Clara’s a friend of mine. She was the one to report us, not me.’
The Commander doesn’t seem convinced, he stares at the ceiling, mouth slightly open. From this close, in the dim light, he looks younger.
‘I wouldn’t have shot him otherwise. I wouldn’t be here. There must be recordings.’
A liquid glance over to his companion, who nods: the Toad seems to acquiesce.
Marzio and Giovanna – Laura, as she is known when she infiltrates Glauco’s life and home on her mission – are posted near Lake Como, where decades earlier (in real life) some of the bloodiest pages of the Second World War were written. They soon develop feelings while translating the pages of an ancient mysterious manuscript, the Book of Lovers, from Esperanto. The book relates the tragic story of Gianna and Neri, both involved in the Resistance and in Benito Mussolini’s arrest; captured by the Fascists and sentenced to death by their fellow partisans on the shores of the lake. As they translate the book, Marzio and Giovanna realise that their livesare very similar to those of the two lovers. Is history repeating itself or is it all just a coincidence? Translated pages from the fictional text are woven into the main text, eerily converging with the real events until the very end.
Mattia Conti has probably written one of the first ‘post-COVID’ novels. One that taps into the various realities that have surfaced during the initial months of the pandemic across Europe. At the same time, it is a text that does not promote the saccharine hopefulness of the various celebrity-fuelled and government-suggested messaging, whether in Italy, the UK or elsewhere. A warning, perhaps, not only about repeating history but also about the situation we have landed ourselves in through over-reliance on surveillance, policing, and normalisation of despotic and totalitarian political – and personal – forces.
By Alex Valente
GLI AMANTI SOMMERSI (The Sunken Lovers)
by Mattia Conti
Published in Italian by Solferino (2021)
Translations from Italian by Alex Valente
Mattia Conti was born in Molteno (Lecco) in 1989. He won the 2011 Premio Campiello Giovani with Pelle di Legno (Woodskin), and the 2013 Prada Journal prize with Gli Occhi di Malrico (Malrico’s Eyes, published digitally in the Zoom Feltrinelli series). Gli Amanti Sommersi is his second novel with Solferino. He is currently pursuing his writing and audio-video interests by writing and developing with a TV production company.
Alex Valente (he/him) is a white European currently living on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ land. He is a literary translator from Italian into English, though he also dabbles with French and RPGs, and is co-editor of The Norwich Radical. His work has been published in NYT Magazine, The Massachusetts Review, The Short Story Project, and PEN Transmissions.
Read previous posts in The Italianist series:
THE ITALIANIST: Riveting Italian Books You Need to Know About by Katherine Gregor. One year on
THE ITALIANIST: From QUEL TIPO DI DONNA by Valeria Parrella, translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From QUEL TIPO DI DONNA by Valeria Parrella, translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From FIORE DI ROCCIA by Ilaria Tuti translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From L’ARTE SCONOSCIUTA DEL VOLO by Enrico Fovanna, translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From IL GIOCO DI SANTA OCA by Laura Pariani, translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From PONTI NON MURI by Giancarlo Ascari & Pia Valentinis, translated by Katherine Gregor
THE ITALIANIST: From ANDRÀ TUTTO BENE, translated by Katherine Gregor