He is the author most loved by children all over the world, with over 300 million copies sold, from China to Italy. Jeff Kinney is celebrating a historic milestone with us: the release in Italy of the 20th volume of his *Diary of a Wimpy Kid*. We are dedicating the cover of *Robinson* – available at newsagents with *Repubblica* from Sunday 1 November – to him and this special occasion. Claudia Morgoglione brings us an exclusive interview with the writer and illustrator: he talks to us about young people and the struggles of growing up, his relationship with artificial intelligence, his concerns about the direction his America is taking, but also his hope for change. Meanwhile, Ilaria Zaffino provides us with a comprehensive guide to his world of books, films, musicals and live events.
Reading groups
The Golosi di libri book club, which meets once a month at the La Stazione library in Predazzo, has read Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney. Whilst the UK will have to do without the author’s books due to her support for the group Palestine Action, the book club stands by her: ‘No to censorship’. Write to us at robinsongdl@repubblica.it
Art
In Modigliana, in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, the exhibition *Silvestro Lega (League). ‘The Cause of the Fatherland, the Cause of Art’ (until 13 December) explores the link between commitment to the Risorgimento and artistic endeavour on the bicentenary of the painter’s birth. Through works and documents, Antonio Rocca, who visited the exhibition on our behalf, explains that the journey of an artist emerges who shared the ideals of freedom and national unity, yet experienced the political disillusionments of the Risorgimento with bitterness. Alongside masterpieces such as *La curiosità*, the exhibition features portraits of Mazzini, Garibaldi and Don Giovanni Verità, depicted without celebratory rhetoric, as well as the faces of women and peasants, whom Lega continued to paint in his quest for an authenticity far removed from the corridors of power.
RobinsonTok
Caro Claire Burke’s *Yesteryear* is also coming to Italy – the publishing sensation of the year in the US, set to be made into a film starring Anne Hathaway. What happens if a modern-day ‘tradwife’ wakes up in 1855? Sara Scarafia tells us all about it in the pages dedicated to literature currently being discussed on social media, explaining how this debut novel weaves together the themes of patriarchy, feminism and social media.
Comics
In *Domenica* (Coconino Press), Belgian author Olivier Schrauwen transforms a seemingly insignificant day into an exploration of the human mind: over five hundred pages, we follow Thibault Schrauwen, shut away in his flat, through his thoughts, memories, fantasies and perceptions. In the Comics section, Luca Raffaelli interviewed the artist, who said: ‘I focused above all on the interaction between the protagonist’s mental processes and his reactions to what is happening outside him. My idea was to construct the story like a piece of music. I knew that the lack of a plot would take nothing away from it.’
Performances
To mark the 120th anniversary of Roberto Rossellini’s birth, from 4 to 30 November the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, in collaboration with Cinecittà, is dedicating the retrospective ‘Roberto Rossellini Prefers Real Life’ to him. In the ‘Spettacoli’ section, Arianna Finos interviews his daughter Isabella Rossellini. The actress recalled her father, who passed away in 1977, and her mother Ingrid Bergman; their great love affair, which caused a scandal at the time because they were both married; and her childhood with her twin sister Isotta and her brother Robin, known as Robertino. Reflecting on the masterpieces born of her parents’ partnership, she said: ‘The films Dad made with Mum were different from the neorealist films; they were more psychological. I think he felt that, in the post-war period, Italy was beginning to be seen as nothing more than a postcard.’
Festival
In Bologna, the Basilica of San Petronio is hosting a two-day dance event – on 8 and 9 November – entitled ‘Memorare’: an event inspired, as Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi explained in our Festivals section, by the ‘Canticle of the Creatures’. We also cover Agorà, the Cesena festival dedicated this year (6–8 November) to the theme ‘Authority and Trust’, which Vittorio Lingiardi explores for us: the psychoanalyst reflects on how the health of public life is linked to a sentiment – trust – which is increasingly at risk in the collective psyche. Finally, as always, we highlight the unmissable events taking place across Italy.
Straparlando
The son of a Waldensian pastor and a sociologist specialising in religion and politics, Paolo Naso has long studied spirituality in the United States, particularly the rise of the Evangelicals. In Antonio Gnoli’s *Straparlando*, he explains why, to understand today’s American reality, one must look to this new theology.