Ugo Cornia was born in Modena. And Modena, with its province, has become the centre of the world. We who read it have become convinced of this over time. There, amidst the city streets and labyrinthine roads that lead to the Po or towards the mountains, an immensity of stories and memories are housed. Those of the author's large family - mum, dad, aunts, grandparents, great-great-grandparents - who every year return to the starting point, those of Ugo Cornia himself and his everyday life, which on the pages become narratives of thoughts and reasoning of a genuineness that can only border on truth. A unique rhythm and flow in which everything, even the rarefied punctuation, takes on an almost philosophical sense. And if those stories are then brought back to us by Ugo Cornia himself, with his voice that seems to travel through all the undulations, cantons and widenings of his land, then we are truly convinced that the world is Modena.
