Troncamacchioni

Troncamacchioni, the latest book by Alberto Prunetti, is a tragedy in three acts, set amid the hills of the Maremma in the early years of Fascism. Its protagonists are liminal, interstitial figures—left out of the grand narrative of history but living in its folds and shadows. We find bandits, deserters, miners, artisans, and peasants who, for a host of reasons, vanish from view and live “a troncamacchioni”, on the run from the authorities and Fascist thugs. This is a choral novel, weaving together the stories of men and women who refuse to submit to the violence of their bosses or to the brutality of the Blackshirts. They resist, rebel, and strike back. Their stories emerge from faded photographs and archival documents that the author has sifted through to piece together events often shrouded in obscurity and contradiction. These are not folk heroes or mythical figures from storybooks, but highly complex characters who may at times appear shady and elusive. It is in this complexity that those abstract entities—the “people”, the “communists”, the “anarchists”, the “masses” and the “proletariat”—that we find in history books truly come to life. The tone of the novella fluctuates: at times solemn and epic, at times dryly descriptive like a page from an archive, and often filled with the wit that is native to the land it portrays. A “rebellious, subversive, indomitable Maremma”, from which paths branch out towards France, Belgium and Russia. The epilogue casts documents aside and turns instead to the voice of an innkeeper, shifting from the written to the spoken word—from history to oral tradition, which still keeps popular myths and legends alive.

Troncamacchioni. Novella nera con fatti di sangue.
Alberto Prunetti
Feltrinelli, 2024