i have always been (and i still am) extremely critic towards italy and its recent history. i have to admit, however, that there seem to be forms of intelligent life in italy, even if they remain mostly hidden from mainstream “culture”. strangely enough, when the rest of our country is falling apart in a devastating collapse of old and now meaningless ideals, ideas and ideologies, leaving only ruins of our glorious (?) past, literature survives. people have found exemplars of active brains that are able to express original ideas using new forms of expression. they pick up the pieces of our destruction and build new stories using  old stones from the past. this is how i imagine the new italian epic, (original definition by the wu ming collective [en]). a first attempt to describe it has recently been translated in french [fr]. don’t miss it.