Diario di un’estate marziana (Diary of a Martian summer)

The diary of a summer spent strolling around Rome, with empty streets and closed offices, a surreal and metaphysical city. Tommaso Pincio walks about re-reading Ennio Flaiano and interweaving his steps with episodes from Flaiano's life. An interplay of echoes between past and present, remembering the years of the first Premio Strega literary prize, won by Flaiano with his unique novel entitled Tempo di uccidere (Time to kill), the post-war years and the world of cinema in which Flaiano had a prominent role, Rome's past and present social life. Pincio's book is a collection of thoughts, written in a style that falls in between essay, biography, autobiography and narrative, through which, starting with Flaiano, the real protagonist arises: Rome, a city that is like a huge cinema set, where all its inhabitants seem to act out a screenplay. The Martian summer in the title is a tribute to the protagonist of one of Flaiano's satirical stories, in which an alien from Mars ends up in Rome and is welcomed with wonder and curiosity, but, after the initial clamour, is forgotten and wonders alone, lost in a city that is impossible not to love and equally impossible not to hate. Indeed, a love-hate relationship, as Pincio calls it, which illustrates Flaiano's feelings for the Eternal City.  

Diario di un’estate marziana (Diary of a Martian summer)
Tommaso Pincio
Giulio Perrone Editore, 2022