Rhombus

In May and September 1976, two violent earthquakes struck northeastern Italy, causing widespread devastation. Around a thousand people lost their lives under the rubble, and tens of thousands were left homeless. Many others permanently abandoned their homeland in the Friuli region. The force of the catastrophe can still be measured today by the enormous displacement of material and the formation of new terrain. Yet, finding the right words to describe the human trauma, the experience of a life that suddenly disintegrates, is a far more difficult task.

In Rombo, distinguished even before its publication with the W.-G. Sebald Literary Prize, seven women and men, who were still children at the time of the events, recount the disaster and its consequences. They speak of the omens that preceded the earthquakes and the total disorder that followed, of the destruction of everything familiar. Esther Kinsky alternates her recollections with descriptions of the Alpine landscape, thus creating a fascinating and almost poetic narrative about the experience of fear and loss, intertwining individual and collective memory with natural history.

Elsinore, 2024