THE TWENTY DAYS OF TURIN

Written during the bloodiest phase of 1970s domestic terror in Italy, The Twenty Days of Turin is a prescient cult novel, with echoes of Lovecraft and Borges.

In the spare wing of a church-run sanitarium, some fervent youths create “the Library,” a space where lonely citizens can read one another’s private diaries and connect with like-minded types. But does this pre-Internet experiment in social media attract anyone normal? Is the Library an answer to isolation or a honey-trap for antisocial content that drains its contributors’ souls? As the city of Turin suffers a twenty-day “phenomenon of collective psychosis,” climaxing in nighttime massacres, the Library is shut down and erased from history. That is, until a self-driven investigator suspects that the unnamable forces behind these unexplained events have continued in the shadows of public amnesia. His inquiry leads him through the city’s netherworld of occultists and to a singular reward for his stubborn curiosity. Elegantly translated by Ramon Glazov, The Twenty Days of Turinis a mysterious and dark novel that anticipates the surreal horror films of David Lynch and Dario Argento. Giorgio de Maria (1924–2009) was a pianist, critic, playwright, and novelist. He wrote four novels, the best remembered of which is The Twenty Days of Turin. Ramon Glazov has contributed to many US and Australian publications, including Jacobin and Tincture Journal. He splits his time between Melbourne and Turin.