Outside of Italy most people first heard of Sandro Veronesi as the author of The Force of the Past, a beautiful novel about a man who's certainties in life begin to unravel after it's been suggested his father led a double life. These unstable securities continue to be an important theme for Veronesi: in his masterpiece Caos Calmo [Calm Chaos] the main character Pietro Paladini saves a woman from drowning while at home disaster strikes. Caos Calmo won the most important literary prize of Italy, was crowned best European novel in France and has been beautifully translated to the screen with a movie starring Nanni Moretti. Veronesi may have stated control is a dead myth to him, but boy does he know how to write about it.

photo ©Jerry Bauer 

• www.sandroveronesi.it
• YouTube-interview bij uitreiking Prix Femina in 2008 (in het Frans)