On one side stands a man who seems so different—and who in some ways probably is. On the other, a community so terribly human, and therefore so wavering, that welcomes him, rejects him, welcomes him again…
Inspired by the life of painter and sculptor Antonio Ligabue (1899–1965), The Heart is a Wild Forest (Neri Pozza 2020) by Novita Amadei is a powerful novel that asks us to think—without prejudice, platitude, or sentimentality—about the relationship between distress (existential and mental), art, and the meaning of community. He has no name, no voice, no story; at first he is only El mätt. Yet suddenly he reveals a talent so overwhelming that it finally grants him an identity no longer defined only by what he lacks.
Nothing comes easy for those marked as different, Amadei tells us. But if there is a girl who invites you onto her motorcycle to "feel only the wind" and calls you papa, then art has created its most beautiful work.
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