Winner of Premio Napoli 2019.

Thirty million people suffer from depression in Europe. It is an insidious, silent illness, which can make those affected by it incapable of performing the simplest of everyday actions. But what is depression, Andrea Pomella wonders, in L’uomo che trema? What is this depression that causes him to wake up in a bad mood, for days on end, with heaviness in his chest, difficulty in swallowing, and a sense of oppression?
One morning, the author of this lucid autobiographical fiction wakes up and asks himself: ‘Why do I always wake up in a bad mood?’ And also: ‘But why should I wake up in a good mood?’ But above all: ‘What is a good or bad mood? Where does the truth of the mood lie? Do I dissemble more when I’m in a good mood or when I’m in a bad one? And with respect to what do I dissemble? With respect to the reality of my mood, or with respect to the objective physiognomy of the reality that surrounds me? And so, once I’ve established the objective physiognomy of the reality that surrounds me, what kind of mood should I be in, a good one or a bad one? And if I succeed with a reasonable degree of objectivity in ascertaining the physiognomy of the reality that surrounds me, that is, if I discover that I am equipped with sufficient psychological quality to judge with a reasonable degree of objectivity the physiognomy of the reality that surrounds me, why does my mood seem indifferent to this reality? Why does my mood react as if this reality did not exist, indeed, as if the reality in question was different, as if this other reality was, let’s say, more unpleasant than the objective reality?’

That is what L’uomo che trema is like: a lucid immersion in the depression of a man who tries to decipher his illness and find a way of living with it and carrying on. A literary document of enormous intensity, which, with apparent detachment, gives us an x-ray picture of dazed despair.

Foreign rights: Einaudi