Marino Magliani: Soggiorno a Zeewijk (A Window to Zeewijk)

The latest addition to my website is Marino Magliani‘s Soggiorno a Zeewijk (A Window to Zeewijk). This is a novel in the tradition of writers such as W G Sebald and Esther Kinsky in that Marino Magliani has moved to Zeewijk on the Dutch coast and writes about his impressions, the people, the landscape and the architecture of the area, while also comparing it (to some degree) with his home region of Liguria in North-West Italy. We first meet him with a local, Piet van Bert who explains the history and geography and the pair become flâneurs (though he uses the Ligurian word scutizusu), looking through people’s windows, hanging out at the mall people-watching and, in Magliani’s case, taking occasional trips to Liguria, comparing the two areas (in favour of Zeewijk). As with Sebald, Kinsky and other similar writers, Magliani can make the ordinary fascinating, while telling his stories about the people and the landscape of Zeewijk.

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