Tommaso Soldini

Uno per uno

«E io? Io vivo ancora con mia madre. Tiro avanti con l’invalidità e con i miei pensieri. Le notti del giovedì fino ad ora hanno funzionato, non ho più scatti d’ira per cui posso evitare le settimane bianche, gli psicofarmaci e il grembiulino aperto sul culo. Anche se per uno come me è già qualcosa, non prendiamoci in giro, la felicità uno se la immagina in un altro modo.»

They grew up in Switzerland in the 1980s and 1990s, in a country that was flourishing; but even so, the characters in One by One live a life on the edge of society, a life full of unanswered questions. They all have their own worries, their little obsessions, their lives are all out of joint. They’re unhappy, or at least they’re quite convinced they’re unlucky.
Glauco, Magdalena, Davide, Maura, Esra, Martina and Simone each have their own chapter, in which they discuss their own destiny: they talk about about their background, age and character, but it gradually becomes apparent that they’re all very different and nothing seems to link them together. Until one day they happen across a remarkable little text written by one Orfeo Bandini. Bandini, who’s a charlatan, worms his way into the hopeless lives of Soldini’s group and uses his pamphlet to persuade them there’s a way to a better life. And that way leads to Morocco.
In the second part of the novel, the group turn up in Morocco, seeking in the Medina at Essaouira the happiness they never dared believe they’d find. Not all of them come through the experience in the same way: some give up almost straightaway; others hang on right to the end. But they must all, against their will, wrestle with the concepts of love and beauty, hope and madness.
Soldini’s novel revolves around the major themes of life: a person’s history as a component of their identity, as a boundary and a burden; the delicate balance between despair and confidence, between world-weariness and the desire for happiness.
(Martin Zingg, translated by Max Easterman, Rosie Goldsmith)

Recommended for translation by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia: www.12swissbooks.ch

Translation of title: One by one

Edizioni Casagrande, Bellinzona 2013

ISBN: 978-88-7713-633-6