“Gaetano Orlando (1930-1998), known as ‘Tanino’, for half his life was a husband, a thug, a man of honour, a fruit seller, a father and a prophet. He spent the other half of his life in prison. He gained notoriety in Naples following an armed duel, which he won on 16 July 1955 against one of the most famous Camorra bosses, Pasquale Simonetti. For the district of Marano and for his family he was certainly a great hero. But I, his grandson, cannot understand the reason. That’s why, over twenty years after his death, I’m trying to portray him through the recollections of his seven children, including my mother, shedding light on a secret my family tried to conceal: there was actually another duel in Tanino’s life, during which a stray bullet killed a three-month-old girl – the original sin that marked my family like a curse. Perhaps the only way of lifting it is to give life to one final duel, in the name of truth: the one between my grandfather and me.”
Aloia with great lucidity tells the story of his family and that of Marano, near Naples, by wedging them into the most complex events of the Camorra network.
Francesco Aloia was born in 1999 and lived in Marano, outside Naples, until he was eighteen. He left because he was certain that there was nothing to tell about the place where he grew up. He then moved to Turin, where he attended the Scuola Holden and began writing only about his home.
Length: 208 pp
Pub date: April 2024