Umberto Visani, "Ubique", English version

       How much of ourselves do we put into our own writing? A lot, I would think (and hope). In my own personal vision of writing, those who write do so first and foremost to open a dialogue with themselves before anyone else.

       Right from the opening lines of Ubique, I could tell that this novel would be an author’s journey into himself - an attempt to “explain himself by explaining”, so to speak, to express himself through a series of events that might seem cryptic to anyone who doesn’t know Umberto Visani, but are fairly unambiguous to those who - like me - know him well.

       We are all the product of what we’ve been through, the air we’ve breathed, the experiences we’ve had. All of this resonates particularly strongly in the book. I would almost be tempted, given the author’s young age, to say that this could be compared to a sort of Bildungsroman, albeit written in a more metaphorical than autobiographical form. The events serve as both a narrative and as existential metaphors; vivid reports on that which left its subliminal mark on the mind and the psyche of the writer.

        If there is one piece of advice I could give readers it would be to approach the book with several different interpretations in mind, the most important of which, on the one hand, is the attention given to the unravelling of the story: well-structured, carefully balanced and chiefly preoccupied with the creation of suspense and anticipation in those who are rightly interested in all the mystery inherent in the narrative.

       However, on the other hand, I would also invite them to take a “journey into the Author”, which is perhaps the most exciting and surprising part, inasmuch as Umberto Visani talks a lot about himself in this book, certainly more than he normally would in person. Although he lets the clues leak out sparingly, they are scattered throughout the text.

       Ubique therefore unfolds with an almost two-tracked structure, with a series of dovetailing elements that offer the reader, depending on one’s tastes and interests, the possibility to choose between an exterior path (which, on closer inspection, is altogether less exterior than it might appear at first glance, given the density of the mystery) and an interior path, that journey into the complex and multifaceted soul of an author who clearly already knows how to spin a good yarn and is perfectly aware that often, in order to build a mystery, you need to solve many others, starting with those that each of us holds within oneself.

       As this young author continues to write - as I’m sure he will - I would invite readers to exploit both kinds of reading to their fullest extent: the former will be enjoyable and convince them that they chose well in this book; the second will encourage them to reflect and hypothesise on what revelations this “dangerous mind” could have in store for us in his second novel, given his ability to draw parallels between the unveiling of himself and that of the stories he creates.

                                 Piero Visani

after a long wait, my first novel UBIQUE is now available in English:http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LYV839O