Fabio Genovesi speaks to us about his novel Nasluka (Esche Vive), about life out of the big city, about marginal characters, the power of translation and about his dream to visit the rock festival in Kavarna…

Fabio, your novel Esche Vive has been published in 9 languages already. Via Lettera is publishing its Bulgarian edition, called Nasluka, in February 2015. This is also your Bulgarian debut as a writer because your other novels have not yet been translated into Bulgarian. We chose this title because of the fishing and hunting connotations it has in Bulgarian and because of the message of good luck it carries. Let’s start with your message to your future Bulgarian readers.

Ciao to all of you. Reading a book is always a gift the reader makes to the author, a gift of time and attention, which are so precious in our lives. So I thank you for this gift.

Tell us more about the novel and how it was accepted in Italy?

It’s the story of a teenager with just one hand, singing in a heavy metal band and working in a fishing shop, of a young woman who works in the local youth center where no young people go but only old timers, and of a kid who has a talent for anything he tries, but he hates winning because being the best only makes him lonelier and lonelier. They all miss something, and when they meet they first think they should hate each other, but then they find out life can be better together.

When the novel came out, it had a slow start. Then after some months it began to sell and was read by many people, because the readers started spreading the word around, and I think this is the best way to support a book. Not marketing, not commercials, but the enthusiasm of the readers, which is the only thing I care about. And that’s why the novel is still selling very well now, because passion and enthusiasm are the best fuel for the life of a book, and for life in general.

As embarrassing as it is, we have to admit that we are huge fans of the band Metal Devastation, especially of its frontman Fiorenzo, and we don’t even like heavy metal. Have you been in a band like that?

Of course. As a teenager I was a metal kid, and though I now listen to many kinds of music, I still love heavy metal and instead of wearing elegant suits and tie like many writers, I like going out with my Voivod or Sepultura t-shirts. When I was in high school, I used to play guitar in a death metal trio called Mortifer. We were different at school, we were outcasts, definitely not the popular boys and not “cool”, but we didn’t care, and I think we had a much more interesting youth than many of those boring fashion guys around.

Most modern writers would choose the urban jungle for the setting of their novels. Why the countryside?

I think big cities all look the same, they offer a lot but I don’t care very much about it, and even though you live among a million people you can be very lonely. In small towns everything is stranger and more personal. And in small towns you have more time to get bored, and getting bored is the source of any good literature, music, art in general. Great books, great stories, great songs…it’s what you do trying to fill a void you have in your days. Stories, they bloom in the countryside, or the seaside where I live: since nothing really happens, you have to make up something, so you need fantasy, invention, love for storytelling. That’s why I prefer small towns. Even when I travel. When I go to the USA for example, I don’t care much about New York or Los Angeles, towns like Walla Walla or El Paso are much more appealing to me. There I can find the true essence of the country. It’s the same in Italy, and I’m sure it’s the same in Bulgaria, too.

There are already many novels set in Tuscany or about Tuscany but this one is different. It is not the usual picture-perfect book aimed at attracting more tourists. Could this story be located in another part of Italy?

Maybe, or maybe not. Tuscany is a world famous tourist place, and if you close our eyes and think about it you immediately imagine the green hills, old but nice farmhouses, lines of cypress trees, renaissance, art, wine…but not all of Tuscany is like that. There are other sides of it which someone may consider uglier, but I think they’re just different. No touristic attractions, no history, no famous churches or museums. But there you may find the most interesting and weirdest characters. People of the plain country, people of the tuscan seaside, wilder guys, stranger guys. It’s probably the same with other regions, but Tuscany has this unique tendency: we like to laugh about things we shouldn’t laugh about. We make bad jokes, life here is a very serious and very funny thing at the same time. In Tuscany, if you see someone laughing at a funeral, it’s probably the dead man’s best friend: the more you love someone or something, the more you approach it with a smile on your face.

Your novel addresses a whole range of problems in modern society and it exposes a lot of imaginary fears and obsessions. We are observing clashes of different generations, different cultures, different expectations. But somehow all these clashes have a positive effect on the characters in the novel. Do you believe it also applies to real life?

I think so. We live in an age of big differences. Far populations who had never got in touch before, now live side by side on the same street. And the same with the different generations. No empty and solitary spaces between us, we may be scared about this contact, but it’s unavodable, and many times the clash between different people results in a new, beautiful and strange unity. Of course it’s not easy, sometimes it’s a mess, it’s just violence and pain, but some other times it’s not. Life is unpredictable, that’s why it’s always worth living it.

Your marginal characters are just as vivid and exciting as your protagonists. Are they taken from real life or are they more of a compilation of oddities from various people?

Marginal charcters are not marginal to me. I love watching people, strangers in bars, on the streets, strangers are everywhere and they are the best. Sometimes I use real people, some other times I just watch someone I don’t know and start to imagine what they may like and what they hate, what are their passions and hobbies, how their friends must look like…and at the end I have so many characters for my stories. You see a guy wearing a Texan cowboy hat in a post office in Poggibonsi, near Siena, and literature is your imaginary trip in his life, from the moment he was born to the one when he saw that hat and thought “Oh God, I would look so cool with that!”. How did he get there? A writer must live this trip in his mind and be able to write it in a novel.

Fishing and cycling are major themes in the novel. Are these your personal favourite pastimes?

Among my favourite, yes. I’ve been a good biker for years, and I’ve been fishing since I was 4 years old. Seaside, rivers, lakes, ponds, any water is good water to me. When I have to build up a story I don’t like to stay indoors, at a table in the dark, I prefer to go out fishing all alone, with a pen and some paper. I try to catch fish, but maybe I catch some good ideas instead. In general, I like being outdoors. Many writers like libraries and dark dusty rooms, I think every second you spend inside is somehow a minor time. You can also read and write outside, anything can be done with the sky over your head instead of a roof. And it’s better for your ideas and feelings, they breathe more easily, more oxygen, more creativity.

The love story in the novel is unusual but very credible. Have you ever met Tiziana in person?

Tiziana stands for all the girls and women of our age, who are more educated and more sensitive and usually work more than males, but being paid less. She has so much to offer, but she’s just a little shy and so other people who are more arrogant tend to get more from society. She is a beautiful treasure waiting there, but only needs someone with special eyes to find it.

What reactions do you get from readers outside Italy? Do they think that the book is very Italian?

I get many different reactions, due to the different people and different places they live in. Brasilian readers and readers from Israel, from the USA, France, Germany…this is a fascinating side of a book, you write it and once it gets published it starts its own life, together with the readers. It’s like a baby, when it grows up you just have to let it go through the world and hope it’s good with the people it meets.

Apart from being a writer you are also a translator from English. Does translation work enhance creative writing and how?

No doubt about it. Translating forces you to explore a very special territory, which lies on the border between your language and another, and in that territory you have to deal and walk, and there you can find the meaning of words, their essence, far from the short-sized sense that they have in your language, far from the same old constructions and connections you were born with. So, when you write your own pages, you become free of using the language, and love it for what it is: a live creature, which moves and changes and swims in a liquid place which is life. Writers should often visit that territory, to tell stories in a lively and intense way. Storytelling is passion, intensity, dealing with every strong feeling that gives meaning to our life. You can’t tell a story of life with dead words and a dead style, it’s like bringing a grave to a birthday party.

Have you been to Bulgaria before? What is your first association with our country?

Years and years ago I visited Greece and Bulgaria with a couple of friends, it was a great road trip, coast to coast from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. But to be honest I was never lucid enough to understand where I was, so I’d love to visit it again now and enjoy your country. I also planned to come to the city of Kavarna in 2010, when I read they elected a mayor who was a total heavy metal fan and used to call himself “Kmetal”…they had metal monuments and murales, and a great heavy metal festival in July and I was so curious. And I also read it’s a great fishing place, so it really sounds wonderful.

Plus, Bulgaria is where one of my childhood heroes was born: Spartacus. My Uncle Aldo would tell me his beautiful story over and over, and it’s still a source of inspiration for my life today.

Any thoughts on your New Year’s Resolutions for 2015?

Oh, well, I don’t know…I plan to stay outdoors even more, love even more, hate no one, don’t waste time but never be in a rush. Play, fish, keep my eyes open and my door too, know beautiful people i still don’t know, learn, sleep late, wake up early, don’t ever stop living life as the most spectacular show you can find yourself into.

And write, of course, but that’s the consequence of all these things.