It is March, 2016. While the unknowing world goes on around them, Manuel Foffo and Marco Prato, two seemingly ordinary young men from good families, brutally murder 23-year-old Luca Varani in a nondescript apartment on the outskirts of Rome. When the body is found, news of the seemingly inexplicable crime sends shockwaves through Rome and beyond, burrowing fear and paranoia into the minds of all it reached. What could motivate such extreme violence? Were the killers evil or in the grip of societal evils? Did they know what they were doing? Were they possessed? And if so, possessed by what?

A Crime Reads and World Literature Today Notable book of 2023, Nicola Lagioia’s The City of the Living straddles the genres of true crime and literary fiction, following one of the most vicious and gripping crimes in recent Italian history. Based on months of interviews, court documentation, and correspondence with the killers themselves, the work is not only fast-paced and revelatory, it is also a descent into the dark heart of Rome—a city that is unlivable and yet teeming with life, overrun by rats and wild animals, and plagued by corruption, drugs, and violence. Nicola Lagioia leads us through a maze of betrayed expectations, sexual confusion, inability to grow up, economic grievances, crises of identity—progressively tightening the focus of the analysis to locate the breaking point after which anything is possible. 

As hypnotic as Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City, an heir to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and destined to cast on spell on fans of the Morbid podcast, The City of the Living is Nicola Lagioia’s most gripping, bestselling, and critically acclaimed novel to-date. The work has been adapted into a podcast, as well as a live theater performance in Italy. In this explorative reading and conversation, we welcome Nicola (all the way from Italy) to discuss the journey his work has taken, from its first inception to eventual adaptations, as well as the differences in the Italian and American literature scene. The conversation and following audience Q&A will be moderated by Edoardo Andreoni, Editor at Europa Editions. 

Italian/English interpretation will be provided by Viviana Altieri, a native of Rome and Founder & Executive Director of Istituto Mondo Italiano, a Pittsburgh organization organizing Italian language classes, concerts, cooking demonstrations, and trips to Italy.

You can purchase your own copy of Nicola’s book, The City of the Living, at City of Asylum Bookstore.

Stick around after the program for a tour of our House Publications on Sampsonia Way! The tour groups will leave at 4pm for a 1 hour tour, giving attendees enough time to get settled for the next program in our LitFest lineup.

About the Author:

One of Italy’s most critically acclaimed contemporary novelists, Nicola Lagioia has been the recipient of the Volponi, Straniero, and Viareggio awards, in addition to the Strega. In 2010 he was named one of Italy’s best writers under forty. He has been a jury member of the Venice Film Festival and is the program director of the Turin Book Fair. Lagioia is a contributor to Italy’s most prominent culture pages. He was born in Bari, and lives in Rome. Ferocity is his English-language debut.

About the Moderator:

Edoardo Andreoni is an editor at Europa Editions and oversees Europa Compass, the non-fiction imprint launched in 2019. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge, where he researched transatlantic diplomacy during the Cold War. Born in Florence, Italy, he lives in New York.