Borders

Lindgren, Dickens, Verne and Alcott live in Magnolia, a technologically advanced megacity in the centre of a barren desert in which no other form of life appears to have existed since the Great Illness struck the planet. There are no books in the city and knowledge is controlled from on high. Society is marked by rigid divisions, with roles that are fixed in stone, and tasks and orders. And yet one person seeks to escape the suppression: Olmo, a wise woman from the “before”, brings children up according to very different values and secretly grows plants. When the C.R.O.W. discovers them, the children are forced to embark on a journey to a mysterious island where it is said that plant and flower seeds collected before they became harmful due to the illness are kept. They are to discover that life continually forces us to question what we thought we knew. Through her dystopic and post-apocalyptic setting, not too far in time or in its conception from our own world, the author encourages the reader to reflect on contemporary society. She does so by creating a neatly structured plot rooted deeply in environmental concerns. This serves as a backdrop for the main characters in a coming-of-age novel in which literature and nature are the twin foundations essential to “remaining human”. It is no coincidence, in fact, that when the children begin to cross the desert of cement to reach the island, trials, obstacles and unexpected events cast doubt on all their certainties. And as the novel progresses, the events they experience bring them into contact with unknown and mysterious realities beyond Magnolia, with the remains of a previous world, new people and situations that prompt the four youngsters to reflect on the values of friendship and freedom.  

Borders
by Giuliana Facchini
2022