30 Lug Gridare agli anni luce

In the prologue, the narrator, Mino Damato’s grandson, moves between two places: an astronomical observatory, where the asteroid bearing his grandfather’s name was discovered, and an archive housing the memories of an entire lifetime. The vastness of outer space and the intimacy of personal space reflect the physical and emotional distance separating him from the meaning of a multifaceted and elusive life. In the first chapter, the narrator explores three tensions that coexist throughout Mino’s years as a special correspondent: the past, recounted in the documentaries of the Avventura series; the harsh present of the war in Afghanistan; and the future, embodied by the optimism surrounding the first achievements of space exploration and Mino’s great passion for the cosmos. From Afghan mortars to Italian Television. In the second chapter, the narrator follows Mino’s television career as he rises to become a celebrated presenter. Mino pursues the idea of a different kind of television, a quest that turns him into an unconventional and unpopular figure within RAI (Italian TV). Everything changes when, while preparing an interview with Prince Charles, he comes across the image of a Romanian HIV-positive orphan named Andreea. He decides to bring her to Italy. The greatest difficulties lie not in the illness itself, but in her struggle to find a place in a society where AIDS remains a taboo. At the same time, Mino’s television career is marked by conflicts and growing isolation, culminating in his decision to broadcast footage of a capital execution against the wishes of the network, a choice that brings his career to an end. Shortly afterwards, Andreea dies at the age of nine; two months later, the narrator is born. Mino’s decision to withdraw from the world after the child’s death and to build a village on the outskirts of Bucharest for children living in the same conditions as Andreea remains unchanged until 2010, the year of his death in a mountain cabin, the final destination of the narrator’s journey. The search concludes with a look toward the future, toward the asteroid that will continue to orbit for as long as the Solar System exists.