There has always been only one war in the history of humanity because war has always been the same: it makes the weakest suffer, it destroys, takes away hopes and dreams, it mortifies humanity. This is also the case with the war at the center of the debut novel by the Cagliari-born journalist Luca Foschi, “Al Ghalas. The darkest hour for the Middle East” (Bompiani, 2024, pp. 545, also e-book).
The protagonist of the book, Ernesto Fiaschi, is, in fact, a freelance journalist. Starting from the outskirts of Is Mirrionis, in Cagliari, he tells us about the daring experiences in Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan, passing through London and reaching Kobarid, in a memoir sui generis. A coming-of-age story with a lyrical and avant-garde style, Al Ghalas (an ancient Arabic term that indicates the darkest moment of the night) immerses itself in the events of the war and in the feelings of the last, giving us unforgettable characters such as the partisan priest Abuna, the thoughtful drag queen Edith, formidable roommate in Beirut, little Cermil, one of the many wonderful boys who guide Fiaschi in the most difficult places.
We asked Luca Foschi how the choice to move from journalism to novels came about:
«The book was born from the need to go beyond the natural limits of journalism. Limits of space of course, but above all of language and, so to speak, of 'framing'. Journalistic prose is built on a more or less noble stylistic medium, it reports places, people and phenomena which, intertwined, create a synthesis. It states more than it asks, it is more horizontal than vertical. I tried to restore the whole kaleidoscope of events that happened outside and inside me, to tamper with my own narrative canon to open up to doubt, emotion, chaos, components of reality that are often banished from discourse. For this reason the style passes from the lyrical to the popular, the great events of history alternate with the minutiae of everyday life, the comical with the tragic in a soliloquy that aims to be open to all, popular. Journalism founders in literature. An old story."
Why the choice to have the protagonist narrate the book, in the first person?
«It was a spontaneous gesture, not a choice. I felt the first person was the most suitable space for representing the eternal struggle between words and things. In the flow of language, the processes that move the protagonist, Ernesto Fiaschi, are dissected, crushed like all conscientious reporters between the ghosts of phenomena and the duty to communicate, between the lyrical or grotesque feeling and the daily message. Let's go back to the sweet shipwreck of journalism, to the hallucination that reality always is. And to much philosophy and literature of the 20th century."
Did you really meet characters such as the priest Abuna, Edith and Cemil in your journalistic travels?
«The novel plays structurally in the interweaving of reality and fiction. It's a tangle that I hope turns out harmonious. Some characters speak and act as on the page. Others are totally invented and represent an idea, or are sublimations, thickenings, compositions of encounters, experiences and narrative needs. But now they are aligned in the playful truth of the novel, and I like to keep the secret of their nature...".
What does the Middle East represent for you?
«The Middle East is the place where I became a citizen of my time, where, overwhelmed, I managed to pierce the membrane that separates us from the feeling of belonging to the destiny of everything that otherwise appears alien and distant. From spectator to character of a theater in flames, where the bad conscience of the West, its obstinate orientalism, the ferocity of power, the inanity of the international community, the infinite beauty of the last, the abyss and the brilliance of existence."
What does it mean to be a journalist in war zones today?
«Perhaps it means dealing with the remote analyzes of geopolitical experts, with the satellites of the great powers and the hegemony of certain narratives, with the virulent superficiality of the internet. Foreign affairs need correspondents, not envoys or self-envoys who arrive in swarms to pick apart the spectacle of devastation, and then quickly leave again. A mobile, wandering correspondent, capable of dancing between belonging and non-belonging, a chronicler organic to the places, the people and their outskirts, ready to bark against any abuse of power. There should be a journalist from the people's areas, not from the war."