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E U R O 1

                                                    PIERA GRAFFER

AUTHOR BIO :

Piera Graffer, Italian, is the successful author of : FAMMI VOLARE (Make me fly) was also nominated as THE BEST NOVEL OF 1997, ARS AMATORIA BY INTERNET, CAUCASO (now translated in English with blurb by John le Carré, and in German), SEPPELLISCI IL MIO CUORE ALLA RADURA DEI CERVI (Bury my heart at the place of the deer), the diary of a Chechen girl. She belongs to the CESS (Central Eurasian Studies Society) of Harvard. Piera Graffer married Ranko Odavic’, a Serb scientist, and lived with him in Sarajevo.

A SUMMARY OF THE STORY :

 “FAMMI VOLARE”  - “HER HELL” – Written with a movie in mind on the beautiful background of Tyrol, in the Italian Dolomites. It’s the winter between 1612/13. The book tells the adventures of two different kinds of scapegoats, the witches and the Serbs. The stories run together and at times overlap and mix, linked by the same protagonist. An old woman lays in a hole in the ground together with four other companions. None of them is guilty of witchcraft, of course, but all are seen by the Catholic Church as threats. The old one (she is the speaker) lived too freely. The second, an expert of herbs, cures and at time saves the sick., thereby intruding in the will of God and the power of the Church. The third is beautiful, but has denied her favours to the local Bishop. The fourth has three breasts, and this is a sure mark of the Devil. The fifth has an unfaithful husband who, in order to get rid of her, accuses her of a crime committed in fact by his lover.

The old woman does not believe in magic, but her memories are in the future, in modern times, and this condemns her. Between torture sessions she remembers when she fell in love and married a very handsome doctor from Sarajevo and lived with him there and elsewhere. Many years later their son Vuko leaves the safety of Europe and goes to Bosnia to fight, and possibly die, on the side of his people.

Often the two characters: the Inquisitor and the Serb love overlap. At the end we find out that they are the same person. As Inquisitor he sends her to the stakes, but while she burns he dies also.

And their souls, ridden of their old bodies, at last join together and, again young and beautiful, jump astride a magic horse and fly away into the stars.

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