DUE MADRI

The heartrending story of two women, of two mothers willing to efface themselves completely to save their children.

Abruzzo, 1943. Stella could never have imagined the war would reach her hometown. But at the end the letters came and the men had to leave; then hunger and then the planes flying low over the mountains. She had never been required in her life to choose on whose side to be, but with her husband away in the Russian front and with work hard to come by, she realises that compromises had to be made and that she had to open the door to those that had been declared as being the enemy. Her son needs food and a future.

Buenos Aires, 1980. Olga is quite certain something was going to happen. People were disappearing without a trace at that time. One day she comes home from her shift at the factory and her husband Miguel is not there. She realises their turn had come. She had to save herself but above all her son. She leaves, all her life in a small suitcase, carrying a bunch of fake documents and holding her son’s hand. Fear tucked away in a corner of her heart in the hope that Miguel will come back to her someday.

Ugo Barbàra is 43 and lives in Rome where he works as unit chief at Agenzia Giornalistica Italia. He is a novelist and screenwriter for television, cinema and theatre. He was a candidate for the Strega Prize, a finalist for the Scerbanenco Prize, and won the Alziator and Scalea prizes. His books have been published by Piemme.