The Superb

This novel is a monument to a city like no other: Genoa, La Superba (the arrogant).

And more than a novel about a shockingly real and labyrinthine city, it is a love story that ends tragically.

And even more than a city novel and a romance novel, La Superba is a book that explores, tells and unravels the fantasy of a better life elsewhere, showing how people – from renowned writers and run-down gentlemen to poor Senegalese slobs and strolling whores – get lost in that fantasy in various ways.

And even more than about the city, love and the fate of the searching human being, this grandiose polyphonic novel is about writing a grandiose polyphonic novel.

Hookers are for lunch. Around eleven or half past eleven, they come out. They hang around in the labyrinth of alleys in the sloping triangle between Via Garibaldi, Via San Luca and Via Luccoli, on either side of Via della Maddalena, in dark streets with poetic names like Vico della Rosa, Vico dei Angeli and Vico ai Quattro Canti di San Francesco. These are alleys where even at noon the sun does not penetrate. There they lean casually against doorposts or sit in groups on the street. They say things to me like "amore." They say they love me and that they want me to come to them.