“THE LAST DAYS OF A CITY” BY IRMA KURTI. Book review by MANUELA RACITI

The story of Eva begins in a deserted Bergamo, accompanied by the incessant sound of many ambulances during the pandemic. This city, a symbol of suffering and strength, will prove to be the perfect setting to kick off this novel.
The protagonist is a determined and sensitive woman, and her words are effective in guiding the reader through a long and profound journey between past and present, wherein the lives of the different characters mingle, merge and blend into one another. With a delicate, albeit blunt and direct style of writing, the author lays bare the protagonist’s experiences, allowing the readers a glimpse into Eve’s past, a past that was intense and important. The reader will thus be able to get a glimpse into this woman’s life, from her childhood to adulthood.
Through wise temporal leaps and the use of different points of view, we will understand the deep bond that binds Eva to her mother Elena, the conflictual relationship between the protagonist and her brother, the emotional fragility caused by the absence of a father figure, and the strong desire to build a family where one can have a sense of belongingness.
It will be precisely this desire to create something of her own that will drive Eva to live through many experiences that will deeply mark and leave an indelible impact on her, but those will also give her the necessary strength to never lose hope. Because, as this novel demonstrates, something beautiful can always happen, even in the last pages of the book of our lives.
The novel “The last days of a city” with which Irma Kurti introduces herself to the reader won the first prize in the International Literary Competition “Literature” organized by the Italian Cultural Institute of Naples in the section of unpublished novels (2021). In 2022 the book was published in Albanian language in Kosovo and in the same year in English in the Philippines where it was awarded as the best novel in the Literary Competition organized by the publishing house “Poetry Planet Book” and the Ophir Awards accredited by the Department of Education in the Philippines.