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The new novel by singer-songwriter and writer Alessio Arena will be available in bookstores from October 4th.
THE NIGHT DOESN'T WANT TO COME by Alessio Arena
(Fandango)
It's June 8, 1953, and the ocean liner Homeland has just crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, reaching the point in the Mediterranean corresponding to latitude 37' 21' North, longitude 4' 30' East, the same coordinates that would be listed on the death certificate of the most famous passenger on board, Griselda Andreatini, known to all who loved her voice overseas as simply Donna Gilda, the Mignonette. Nearing seventy, consumed by alcohol and jealousy, Donna Gilda is making her final journey to Naples, the city she sang about for half a century and that made her the "queen of emigrants." Keeping watch over her is Esterina Malacarne, known to all simply as the guagliona, the white-haired assistant with the childlike body Gilda brought from Italy, a girl from the working-class neighborhoods but well-educated who had always acted as her interpreter because her father was a doorman at the American consulate. While Gilda sleeps in her last bed, the young girl reconnects with their shared past: her arrival at Ellis Island, the life of luxury and theater in New York, her meeting with Federico García Lorca, her daring suicide attempt, and the correspondence between the poet and the singer, but above all, Esterina's love and betrayal with the one man she should never have desired. Against the backdrop of glittering New York from the roaring twenties to World War II, and of a generation wasted in pursuit of fortune, Alessio Arena sings with poignant nostalgia of Prohibition, Italian-American gangsters, Gilda's fame and her stage presence, and the passions and disappointments of America's greatest Italian singer.
Alessio Arena
Naples, born in 1984. Singer-songwriter, thanks to a recommendation from Matteo B. Bianchi, he was invited to participate in the second edition of Esor-dire as part of the literary event “Scrittorincittà” held in Cuneo in 2007.
After this initial testing ground, he contributed to various anthologies and Italian and Spanish magazines, such as Linus, 'Tina, Colla, Calle 20, and the literature portal Nazione Indiana. He was chosen by Mario Desiati to be one of seven Italian narrators born in the 1980s in the monographic section of issue 41 of Nuovi Argomenti, entitled "Not Yet Thirty." In 2008, he was invited to participate in the second edition of "RicercaBo," the new writing workshop organized by Nanni Balestrini and Renato Barilli.
His first novel, L'infanzia delle cose (Manni, 2009), won the Giuseppe Giusti Award for a First Work. In 2010, he participated in the Ultra-festival della letteratura in infatti, where he presented his second novel, Il mio cuore è un mandarino acerbo (My Heart is an Unripe Mandarin), included in the 9volt series by Zona, following texts by Fileno Carabba and Franz Krauspenhaar. In the same year, he returned to Esor-dire, now as a published author, and won the audience award with the text Le stelle, in fila indiana, poi si lavavano la faccia (The Stars, in Single File, Then They Washed Their Faces). In 2011, he was part of the team of authors of On the Road, a paperback fiction series by SenzaPatria editore. The title is La casa girata (The House Turned). As a singer and author, he participated in The water version (Merdiziano Zero, 2009) setting to music of the novel by LR Carrino, Crooked Water, and writes and interprets The man with the window in his chestincluded in the CD “Canzoni” (Magma, 2009) presented during the happening organized by the small Neapolitan label at the MADRE, the contemporary art museum of Naples. With Gianni Lamagna he participated in two editions of Stories and music for the Christmas days, concert for voices and instruments in the monumental complexes of the church of Pietrasanta and of Saints Philip and James in Naples.
Autorretrato de ciudad invisible, (diMusicaInMusica, 2011) his first EP in Spanish, is distributed digitally on I Tunes, Amazon, Spotify, Deezer, and is presented at the Teatro Cal Ninyo in Sant Boi de Llobregat (bcn) and at the NunOFF, festival de creació emergent de Barcelona.
For the theater, she starred in Nemico di classe, currently on the bill at the Trianon in Naples, directed by Karima Campanelli with music by Alfonso Martone. She also wrote Marinella and Quattro mamme scelte a caso, together with Palmese, Carrino, and Virgilio, a production of the Nuovo Teatro Nuovo in Naples, included in the program of the Settembre al borgo di Casertavecchia theater festival and published by Caracó Editore. In Spanish, the stage plays Hielo and El árbol (o las manos abiertas de Celidonia Fuentes) were both produced by Nudo Teatro in Madrid, active in the city's alternative theater scene, and directed by Ángel Málaga.
Also voice and co-author of Lacasavacía acoustic duo with Giancarlo Arena, he collaborates on Tot aquest silenci (Nómada, 2012) and Tot aquest soroll (Nómada, 2013) album by the Catalan pianist Clara Peya, divided into two chapters, interpreting a selection of the new Catalan poem, together with the jazz singer Judit Neddermann.
With Peya he also recorded “Espiral” and played live in theaters throughout Catalonia.
“Bestiari(o) familiar(e)” is his first multilingual album (like those of Lhasa de Sela, to whose memory the entire work is dedicated) recorded between Barcelona (with arrangements and production by Clara Peya and pianist/drummer Toni Pagès) and Naples (under the aegis of the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare) and produced by diMusicaInMusica.
The first single from the album, Tutto quello che so dei satellitare di Urano, was among the finalists at Musicultura 2013, the Italian songwriting festival, and went on to win Arena the overall winner award for this edition and the AFI (Italian Phonographic Association) award for Best Recording Project.
His latest novel, Tamil Literature in Naples, was published by Neri Pozza in the “Bloom” series in September 2014. It received a special mention in the first edition of the Neri Pozza Prize (second place) and was a finalist for the Minerva Prize.
In 2016, the album La secreta danza was released, featuring key figures from the current Iberian music scene such as El Kanka, Pau Figueres, Marta Robles de Las Migas, and maestro Amancio Prada, a key figure in Spanish songwriting.
Translator from Catalan and Castilian, he won the 2017 Literary Prize in Fano for the translation of Un hijo by Alejandro Palomas (published by Neri Pozza).
In early October 2018, Arena published a novel about the biographical events of Neapolitan song star Gilda Mignonette, entitled La notte non vuole venire (Fandango, October 2018), and is in the process of recording her first album entirely in Italian and Neapolitan, Il mare minore.
The album is preceded by the single Diablada, which combines rhythms and traditions from Northern Chile and Bolivia with the new Neapolitan sound, in collaboration with the percussion group Pegaonda.
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