LIES, ENCHANTMENTS, NARRATIVES: A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MATTEO GRILLI AND NICOLETTA VALLORANI

Cosa è vero, e cosa è falso quando la percezione si confonde, quando il dolore è troppo e per coprirlo ogni strategia è valida? I protagonisti dei romanzi di Matteo Grilli lo sanno bene, e si muovono in un mondo in cui i confini tra immaginario e reale, tra incantesimo e maleficio sono perennemente oscillanti. Come in piccoli glitch nella vita comune aprono squarci, rompono pixel, sfondano muri: è un immaginario potente e doloroso che prende a piene mani dall’immaginario dei migliori anime e manga, ma anche dalla più occidentale cultura dell’horror. Ad accompagnarci in questa discesa ci sarà Nicoletta Vallorani, vestale e profeta della fantascienza italiana, che con l’idea di città, di comunità, esplosa e condivisa ci aiuterà a ricomporre, e ricucire, ogni pezzettino.

What is true, and what is false when perception gets confused, when the pain is too much and every strategy to cover it is valid? The protagonists of Matteo Grilli's novels know this well, and they move in a world where the boundaries between the imaginary and the real, between enchantment and evil are perpetually fluctuating. As with small glitches in ordinary life, they open gashes, smash pixels, break through walls: it is a powerful and painful imagery that draws heavily from the imagery of the best anime and manga, but also from the more Western culture of horror. To accompany us on this descent will be Nicoletta Vallorani, vestal prophetess of Italian science fiction, who with the idea of the city, of community, shattered and shared, will help us to recompose, and mend, every little piece.

Professor of English and Anglo-American Literature at the University of Milan, Nicoletta Vallorani made her debut with Il cuore finto di DR (The false heart of DR, Urania Prize in 1993, translated into French by Rivages), and followed this up by writing both noir and science fiction. La fidanzata di Zorro (Zorro's Girlfriend), the first of four nomadi" novels (in terms of theme and publisher: Marcos y Marcos, Einaudi, VerdeNero), was awarded the Zanclea Prize in 1996, and the series was published in France by Gallimard. Le madri cattive (Bad mothers, Salani – Petrolio, 2011), a disconcerting, difficult novel about infanticide, won the Maria Teresa Di Garanzia Award in 2012. After Avrai i miei occhi (You will have my eyes, Campiello 2020 selection, Italy Award) and Eva, Nicoletta published Noi siamo campo di battaglia (We are battlefield) with Zone 42, her third novel set in tomorrow's Milan, a city where the author lives with many contradictions. She wrote A di Amicizia (F for friendship) for the SCATOLINE series of effequ, and for the same publishing house Il chiodo nel tempo (The nail in time), a story for the anthology Circospetti ci mossiamo on the events of Genoa 2001, edited by Michele Vaccari.

A Milan transplat from Marche, Matteo Grilli made his debut as an author of horror stories and screenplays for comics. He wrote the Anime & Sangue (Animer and Blood) series for Amazon Prime Video, published articles in Not, Esquire Italia, La Caduta and Droga, and his essay La liberazione dell’otaku (The liberation of the otaku) can be found in Nerdopoli (effequ 2018). Currently he collaborates with the online cultural magazine Lucy, directed by Nicola Lagioia. In 2020 he published his first novel, the shojo-horror Crocevia di punti morti (Crossroads of Dead Points, effequ). Muori romantica (effequ 2023) is his second novel.