Ti chiami lupo gentile
(Your name is kind wolf) Book not yet available in English
Summary:
The Roman coastline. Petty crime, petty delinquency, petty extortion. Carried out by gangs of young people, sometimes little more than children, who believe in a single law: survival of the fittest. Claudio is no different. In order to obey his father, and because that’s the way it’s done, he also sets fires, steals, and extorts money. But he has his own sense of justice. And a love that could save him. Maybe. If it does not all boil down to a knife fight on the beach, once again, to find out who is the strongest.
Edited by: Centro MeTRa - Università di Bologna (Italy)
Comment:
” “Ti chiami lupo gentile” is an intense and topical coming-of-age novel, set on the Roman coast in the early 2000s and narrated in a simple and straightforward language. Luisa Mattia realistically recounts the lives of teenagers immersed in an environment dominated by a mafia mentality, where petty theft, fights, and blackmail are part of everyday life. Claudio is one of them, he is sixteen years old and the son of a criminal who already has the leadership of a small gang. He is torn between the violence he has always experienced and a sensitivity that is trying to emerge. The small crack in his world begins to form with the choice of his girlfriend, Simonetta, who leaves him to build a ‘clean’ life for herself, and widens when he meets Paulo and his father Amedeo, the only shopkeeper who refuses to bow to blackmail. Faced with the possibility that his father will also target innocent people, Claudio finds the courage to rebel: he destroys his father’s motorcycle and publicly sides with Amedeo, breaking once and for all with the mob mentality. The strength of the novel lies precisely here: in showing how even in an environment marked by brutality, a different option can arise. “Ti chiami lupo gentile” is a tough but deeply human story about dignity, inner freedom, and the possibility of changing one’s destiny. It is the story of a boy who remains a “wolf” but chooses to be one in his own way: a gentle wolf. “