Il Naufragio

On the night of July 25th, 1956, the Italian transatlantic liner Andrea Doria (on which the author was traveling) collides with the Stockholm, a Swedish ocean-going vessel, and it ends up sinking the following morning. The dramatic circumstances of the shipwreck put the protagonist face to face with numerous, sometimes unsettling doubts and questions, with which he will have to come to terms in the attempt to make sense of what has happened. He is accompanied by Max, a journalist who is also searching for shameful and unmentionable truths, and by Stella, who assumes from time to time the various roles of nurse, accomplice, mother, and antagonist.A fast-paced and gripping story in which an autobiographical episode provides the cue for a reflexion upon a humanity that has become marooned and where a refined style of writing goes hand in hand with a penetrating psychological investigation: published by Bompiani in 1987 under the title Il naufragio dell'Andrea Doria (The Shipwreck of the Andrea Doria), for many years impossible to find, Rosselli's novel represents even today a rare example of high style and intelligence.