In 1943, the Greek island of Cephalonia was the center of a military confrontation between the German and the Italian armies, which ended with the massacre of more than five thousand Italian soldiers. As a reminiscent of that incident, author Luigi Ballerini has composed a “two-voice monologue” depicting both the victim’s and his tormentor’s contrasting profiles that include honor, conscience, power, fury, wisdom, and moral blindness. The language is sophisticated as well as colloquial, reflecting modern Italian poetry and the author’s ability to reveal obscure angles of human conscience and history.
