Impossible

'Mine is an experimental case. It's pushing a man to confess to a political crime, the last instalment of a forgotten era.'

In this taut novella set in the Dolomites, a cat-and-mouse interview opens between a young magistrate and an older suspect. It becomes an examination of perception versus truth and of the group protection afforded in a moment of collective action versus the echoing responsibility of the individual over 'the leprosy of time'.

Without evidence, an experienced hiker is held in solitary confinement under suspicion of murdering a man who fell to his death on a mountain path. In a series of tense, metered interviews, the political causes of the suspect's past emerge. The men knew each other decades earlier, were brothers-in-arms against a greater social injustice until the victim turned state's evidence and the accused was sent to prison. Climb the mountain yourself, the old man urges the young magistrate. Not for confirmation, but to find out the truth. His past guilt and the suspense surrounding his guilt now become corollaries to De Luca's central drama of discovery: the real character of a man and his integrity in the impossibility of the moment.

“'As when walking on the edge of a precipice - even in conversations it only takes a missed word to fall into the ravine'”

If there's an entry point into the work of the enduring, award-winning Italian writer Erri De Luca, then N.S. Thompson's excellent translation is surely it . . . Thoughtful and wise about life and landscape, it's the most cerebral of whodunnits Observer
A unique and remarkable novel La Croix
The only true first-rate writer that the new millennium has given us so far Corriere della Sera

Erri De Luca is an award-winning writer, poet and activist whose literary awards include the Prix Andre Malraux, the European Book Prize and the European Prize for Literature. The author of more than seventy books translated into more than thirty languages, he has been called 'the writer of the decade' byCorriere della Sera. A dedicated mountain climber, he lives a reclusive life in the hills surrounding Rome.N.S. Thompson is a poet and critic and translator of Italian fiction and poetry. He has worked as a gardener and museum curator in Italy and as an academic and creative writing tutor in Oxford.

In this novella set in the Dolomites, a cat-and-mouse interview opens between a young magistrate and an older suspect. It becomes an examination of perception versus truth and of the group protection afforded in a moment of collective action versus the echoing responsibility of the individual over 'the leprosy of time'. 'Mine is an experimental case. It's pushing a man to confess to a political crime, the last instalment of a forgotten era.' In this taut novella set in the Dolomites, a cat-and-mouse interview opens between a young magistrate and an older suspect. It becomes an examination of perception versus truth and of the group protection afforded in a moment of collective action versus the echoing responsibility of the individual over 'the leprosy of time'. Without evidence, an experienced hiker is held in solitary confinement under suspicion of murdering a man who fell to his death on a mountain path. In a series of tense, metered interviews, the political causes of the suspect's past emerge. The men knew each other decades earlier, were brothers-in-arms against a greater social injustice until the victim turned state's evidence and the accused was sent to prison. Climb the mountain yourself, the old man urges the young magistrate. Not for confirmation, but to find out the truth. His past guilt and the suspense surrounding his guilt now become corollaries to De Luca's central drama of discovery: the real character of a man and his integrity in the impossibility of the moment.

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