My new book, Aprile è una strana stagione (April is a strange season), published by Gramma Feltrinelli, is about to be released. It tells the story of an Italian filmmaker who lived in the 20th century on three different continents.

I met this person in his old age, when he was about to retire permanently to a foreign country: a propitious moment to take stock of one’s life (if one has the courage to do so), to retrace episodes, encounters, loves, turning points: in his case, even U-turns.

We spoke often after he left. He told me about his extraordinary life: not so much because of the paths that chance had led him down, but because of the way he had travelled them. I asked his permission to write about it and he agreed, on condition that he would not be recognisable. When you read the story of his life, you will understand why.

In order to make him unrecognisable, I had to mix up a series of references. And where he had left gaps, I also invented something. But in the end, isn’t that always the case with the story of our lives, a mixture of memory and imagination, of desire as well as truth? In the end, however, the most beautiful parts of the book are not the ones I invented, but the real ones, the ones he told me, and that only he could tell me.

I will be presenting the book in Rome on Tuesday 31 March at 7 p.m. at the Feltrinelli bookshop in Largo Argentina. It will be a conversation with Mimmo Calopresti, an author who is also loved for the consistency that characterises his filmography.

I will be presenting in Milan on Wednesday, 1 April at 6.30 pm at the Feltrinelli bookshop in Viale Sabotino.

I look forward to seeing you there. We will talk about what it means to narrate a life. And about the mystery whereby, when reading about the lives of others, even lives that are very distant, even lives that are apparently opposite to one’s own, one always ends up reading about oneself.