The ingredients of Lotta amata: comedy and a pinch of tragedy, spear guns, real guns, a Luger pistol, hilarious jokes, young outlaws who want to turn society inside out, subversive women, impossible loves, state secrets, a little girl with freckles, a little girl with dimples, two little brothers, one curly and the other with an impossible fringe, strange families rather than normal families, revolutionaries, bombers, gays, Dyane, R4, Goldrake, Candy Candy, warships, photographers, prime ministers, Gigi Riva, the 70s and 80s in abundance, plot twists, other secret components.
Could Sardinia become the incubator of the global socialist revolution?
It seems like the plot of a utopian novel, a political fantasy. However, many decades ago, someone really believed it. As if Cuba and Sardinia could unite through a red thread, libertarian for some, bloodthirsty and brigatist for others. Some young people in the 70s and at the dawn of the 80s wanted to make a revolution at work. Among them, for sure, Erni’s uncle, the (co)protagonist of this novel. Uncle Geremia tried to write “combatant profession” on his identity card, but at the registry office they explained to him that it was not possible, unless it meant an employee of the Armed Forces. So he said to the employee: “write poet”.
The author was nine years old at the time of the tale told here. Many anecdotes, especially those relating to his adventures, those of his little brother Ricciolo and his cousins Laura and Mara, are authentic, true, or plausible. The parallel story of Uncle Geremia and his entourage of ramshackle anarchists, of the Red Brigades and their weapons, of the loves and the comical rebellious strength of these pages, as well as that of the final twist, is almost entirely invented.
