Uno zinzino di Zen

Mariotti is best known as the author of Storia di Matilde, which literary critic Pietro Citati hailed upon its publication by Adelphi as “the finest novel written in Italy in the last twenty years”. Beyond this, his literary oeuvre includes works primarily published by Anabasi and Et Al., alongside a vast journalistic career spanning newspapers such as “Corriere della Sera”, “L’Espresso” and “la Repubblica” between 1976 and 2008. For the past fifty years, Mariotti has also been a key contributor to Franco Maria Ricci’s publishing company, which owes him its distinctive voice. His contributions include dozens of titles, introductions, curated works, articles, essays, marginal notes and even advertising copy. His unmistakable tone permeates every corner of the publisher’s identity. The concise, delicately aphoristic tone that Mariotti has cultivated over the years finds a natural home in the texts presented in this collection – short, almost wistful in their brevity, yet brimming with quiet substance. In Mariotti’s own words, the book becomes a collection of “irrelevances”, a way of seeing the world that the writer, with his typical understatement, gently proposes even to those who feel called to “make history” and/or “change the world”.