Dan Fante

(1944-2015)

Dan Fante was born in Los Angeles in 1946. Son of writer John Fante, he writes plays, poetry and novels. At the age of twenty, he left his studies and began to travel, living a ‘difficult’ life and gripped by alcohol problems. He does all sorts of jobs. He began writing in the 1990s inspired by his experiences on the edge of the existential abyss.

For some years now, his fame has been on the rise. He has just signed a contract with the prestigious US publishing house Harper Collins, which has republished all of his works.

In Italy the following have been released: Angels in Pieces, Marcos y Marcos, 1999; Hooks, Marcos y Marcos, 2000; Mae West, East of the Equator, 2008; Don Giovanni, Edizioni Spartaco, 2009 and Buttarsi, Marcos y Marcos, 2010.

Antonio Di Renzo

Antonio Di Renzo graduated from the University of Padua in Natural Sciences with a thesis in Systematic Botany on the flora of the Maiella. He has collaborated with various public and private bodies for the drafting of environmental management plans. With the museum network of Fermo and Ascoli Piceno he worked on environmental education. He has collaborated with various environmental associations to protect the landscapes from the implementation of large wind farms. He was also involved in the revaluation of an ancient local agronomic cultivar, the Torricella black celery.

He has published several articles and books. Among his interests is local historiography, and in 2011 he published The Church of San Giacomo, a historical account from the 12th century to the 19th century on the Mother Church of Torricella (Quaderni – Rivista Abruzzese). In 2013, with the contribution of the Marche Region, he published the book Smerillo, naturalistic and botanical aspects of a territory (Litoemme Editrice). In 2014, with the Benetton Studi Ricerche Foundation and for the Carlo Scarpa International Award, he wrote Historical evolution of the zootechnical heritage of Pescocostanzo within the Bosco Difesa di Sant’Antonio. In 2021 he published with the historian Lucio Cuomo Fallascoso borgo d’altura (Bibliografica, Castel Frentano). Finally, in 2022 he published L’uomo e il landscape – The human economy and its influence on the landscape aspects and biodiversity of a territory (Editrice Carabba) with Aurelio Manzi, curator, Lelio Porreca, illustrator, and interventions by Paolo Granà , Tourism Councilor of the Municipality of Torricella Peligna, and prof. Antonio Spadano.

Gianni Materazzo

Gianni Materazzo spends his childhood and adolescence in Tripoli, Libya. Returning to Italy, he settled with his family in Bologna where he still lives and works and where, usually, he set his detective novels which feature the lawyer Luca Marotta.

Graduated in law, he will make very limited use of his qualification, passing instead, through a series of work experiences that have little to do with codes and law: publicist, teacher, assistant director, illustrator, advertising graphic designer, comic book designer.

In ’ 74 the first and only children’s bookshop opens in Bologna – now Città del Sole -, which, in addition to promoting meetings and debates, over time it also becomes an important didactic reference point for kindergartens and the first cycle. He makes his debut as a yellowist,not writing a novel but drawing a comic detective for ‘ Orient Express ’, the magazine directed at the time by Luigi Bernardi. The story is taken from a novel by Loriano Macchiavelli, ‘ The tracks of the attack ’, and will be republished in 2005 by the publisher Dario Flaccovio in an edition for collectors.

Only a few years later he also ventured into genre fiction, writing his first detective novel, ‘ Imperfect crimes ’, and unexpectedly winning the ‘ Alberto Tedeschi Prize ’ at the Mystfest in Cattolica in 1989. Also published by Giallo Mondadori, three other novels will follow: ‘ Cherchez la femme ’, ‘ Villa Maltraversi ’, ‘ The labyrinths of memory ’. From the first three, RAI draws as many TV series ( title of the series, ‘ Three steps in the crime ’ ), which are broadcast in the early evening with a remarkable success in listening and criticism.

The main interpreter of the films is Gioele Dix in the hardened role of Luca Marotta, an anomalous lawyer figure. Meanwhile, it becomes part of the historian ‘ Thirteen Group ’ which brings together writers from the yellows of Bologna and its surroundings, many of whom are well known to readers of the genre. He also writes numerous short stories for anthologies and collections, as well as for newspapers and magazines, such as ‘ Joy ’, ‘ Modern Woman ’ The Red Shrimp ‘.

He then spent a long period during which he collaborated with First Film, a television production company, writing subjects, treatments, screenplays. For a couple of years he has resumed his activity as a yellowist, completing the drafting of two new novels. The first, ‘ Friday 17 ’, is a story between yellow and thriller that takes place in Positano in the middle of a torrid summer: once again the lawyer Marotta is the protagonist.

The novel was published by Alberto Perdise Editore in June 2006. The second, ‘ The family album ’, is instead a noir set in the distant, dark years ’ 50: theater of the story is in a small, remote country of the central Apennines. The latter novel was released in bookstores in September 2007, published by Alberto Perdisa Editore.

Lelio Porreca

(1926-1994)

Writer, poet, ecologist, and first supporter of the National Park of the Majella

Whilst Porreca wrote – notes about customs, studies of working-class traditions, historical research and about tourism – in the daily newspapers and in periodicals, at the same time he also used to dedicate himself to recovering archaeological finds dating as far back as the 6th Century BC, such as the bronze helmet of Torricella Peligna, kept at the National Museum of Chieti. The first resumption of systematic excavation at Juvanum in the territory of Montenerodomo is due to Porreca.

The satirical small volume “Small Portrait of a Political Career-ist” published in 1961 serves as a reminder of that incandescent political period. Since then Porreca has identified the causes of political degeneration and the emergence of the disease, “protagonism”, which makes people desirous only of satisfying their own interests whilst controlling the will of the electors, as a response to the complex demands of society. We should go back and read those pages again, to remind ourselves about fulfilling these needs, because they have largely been forgotten about, in the years since they were written. Thus it would be advisable to find one of the last articles Porreca wrote, addressed to intellectuals. It would take too long to go over all his publications, but we must mention the one called “A Walk in Abruzzo” where we meet: the call to religion from the earth; the reference to historical roots in the phases of civil development and subsequent decadence; modification of customs but also traditions preserved. Thus, whilst the author speaks about present-day realities, he also subjects the images to a continual decline, which moves between memories of the past to expectations and hope in the future. Meanwhile he deduces that the streets of Abruzzo can draw out the means of survival from the beauties of nature and from the charms of history. Thus the localities appear to be alive, Guardiagrele, Gessopalena, Torricella Peligna, Montenerodomo, Majella, the National Park of Abruzzo and the Cavallone Grotto.

Porreca’s work called “Once Upon a Time There Was the Sky”, edited in 1982; it is a novel set in Agnone.(1) In it he writes both of the vicissitudes of the last war and also about the rebirth of hope and of love. In this work Porreca’s art has reached maturity in his use of expressive methods capable of interpreting even the slightest wisps of thought and the most hidden movement’s of the soul.

To complete this picture of Lelio Porreca we recall that he was a founder of “Pro-Loco” (2) of Torricella Peligna and as its president he was the guiding spirit of so many events held to promote and develop tourism in the entire region. He organised the Congress “Let us Save the Majella” in January 1971 which aroused great interest at the National Level because of its ecological ideas concerning protection of mountain zones, earning the approval of Indiro Montanelli in one of his editorials entitled “Civismo” (3) which appeared in the “Corriera della Sera”.(4)

In defence of nature Porreca intervened to block the advances of a stone quarry which was destroying “La Morgia” a majestic limestone mass of natural panoramic beauty, which rises between Gessopalena and Torricella Peligna.

For having produced so much literature, Lelio Porreca will live on in the hearts and souls of all those who read his many works and share his message of love for nature, for history, for ideals and values, by which he lived cohesively both as a man and as a citizen.

Nicola Troilo

(1930-2017)

Nicola Troilo was the eldest son of Ettore Troilo, Commander of the Maiella Brigade. In the first months of 1944 the first partisan battles began and Nicola, not yet fourteen, followed his father throughout the campaign of the Maiella Brigade, from Abruzzo to Veneto. He wrote down everything, and in 1967 he transformed his notes into a book, The history of the Maiella Brigade, updated and reprinted in 2011. It is a faithful reconstruction of the path of the most important Italian partisan formation.

In 1955 he published a story, “Terra Bruciata”, in which he describes the liberation of Torricella, and in 1986 in the “Rivista Abruzzese di storia dal fascismo alla Resistenza”, a long story about his personal events during the war. He also published several articles in the Torricella newspapers, “All’ombra della Maiella”, “Amici di Torricella” and “Chi’ ssi dice”.

He was a renowned lawyer. As a divorce lawyer he worked with famous people such as Anna Magnani, Burt Lancaster, Vittorio Gassmann and Ingrid Bergman. He was also a lover of the mountains, and in particular the Maiella on which he guided. In 2014 he was awarded the “Torricellano nel Mondo” award. See Chi’ ssi dicie? 37.