Giacomo Papi

Con le armi dell'ironia e dell'esagerazione, questo romanzo racconta la deriva "ignorantista" che stiamo vivendo in Italia, facendo riflettere sulle conseguenze che può avere basare qualsiasi tipo scelta (politica, economica, scientifica, umana...) sull'ignoranza.
Occorre trovare un modo per avvicinare i radical chic al popolo (per usare la terminologia del romanzo) e per far comprendere al popolo che anche i radical chic ne fanno parte e che le scelte politiche riguardano tutti, non show more soltanto gli elettori delle forze politiche di maggioranza. E' un'opera civica e sociale che impiegherà diversi anni (se non decenni), ma che bisogna iniziare. Occorre cominciare dalla scuola, insegnando logica e pensiero critico fin dalla più tenera età. Forse in questo modo avremo qualche speranza di salvare il nostro Paese, ma soprattutto la nostra umanità. show less

The Italian writer Giacomo Papi has tackled a theme that’s been coming up more frequently: the dead returning to life, but not as zombies (we’ve had two TV series and a similar novel in the last year or so).

In this case, the phenomena is widespread and covers the dead from all time. That quickly creates problems: There’s not enough food, water, or space for all these people.

The protagonist, a young medical doctor, is both entranced and horrified by the rapidly growing crisis. What’s show more more, he and his partner, Maria, are expecting their first child—but now giving birth has been criminalized because, quite simply, we’ve run out of room.

A strange sort of supernatural meditation on the risks of overpopulation as well as the idea that death is not a bad thing, They Shall Begin Again straddles the line between literary allegory and traditional genre fiction, and it’s intriguing and more than a little creepy.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com show less

"Il cibo era diventato il grande connettore sociale. Aveva sostituito il pensiero. Dove un tempo c'erano i teatri, adesso sorgevano supermercati di cibo italiano. (...) La gente mangiava a strafogarsi, poveri e ricchi, erano tutti più interessati a ciò che gli entrava in bocca rispetto a ciò che ne usciva sotto forma di parole."
La fine degli anni Dieci in 141 pagine, fra distopia, satira e commedia. Amaro.

The dead are returning and no-one knows why. It starts with an old man creating a scene in a local grocery store. He is taken to the hospital and tells an incredible story of his life and his death. Incredibly, it appears to be true. He died more than thirty years ago. And he is only the first.

The doctor who attended the old man begins to study the phenomena and leaves his pregnant girlfriend to attend a conference with the hope of finding an answer to the problems created by these returned show more people.

The dead are returning faster and faster, more and more of them are going back to their homes and families, if they still exist. But as they are returning from all the ages of man, there is nowhere for them to go. It won’t be long before all the earth’s resources are overcome. Their needs for water, food and land cannot be met.

While I enjoyed the story, I did not enjoy the prose as much. It was awkward and felt stilted in parts. Whether this is a fault of the author or the translator, I do not know; but I think that within the pages lurks a great story just waiting to get out. show less