Arturo's Island

Arturo’s Island… Criii! This is not just a novel, it’s a piece of my Procida’s soul. Written by Elsa Morante in 1957, it won the Premio Strega the same year, one of the most important literary awards in Italy.

And did you know? In 1962, this story became a film directed by Damiano Damiani. But everything begins here, among these rocks and this sea.

The story takes us to 1938, on the island of Procida. Here grows Arturo Gerace, a boy without a mother, who died giving birth to him. He lives almost alone, between beaches and cliffs, carrying a name that shines like a star.

His father, Wilhelm, half German and half Neapolitan, is a distant presence, like a boat on the horizon that disappears. Kraak! He often leaves for work, and Arturo waits for him, imagines him, turns him into a hero in his mind.

Arturo grows up free, like the wind across the sails. He drinks goat’s milk, has few clothes and little food, but he has the sea, the island, and his dreams. He reads tales of knights and lives in imagination, running everywhere in this paradise of salt and sun.

His only friends? Two: his dog Immacolatella and a boy named Silvestro. For the rest, there is the old family palace, partly ruined, full of silence and stories to invent.

But as he grows, the wind shifts. Arturo discovers the world of women and, at the same time, the harsh truth of disappointment. Especially toward his father, whom he can no longer admire as before.

It is also revealed who Wilhelm truly is: a man living under the weight of his past, who marries to hide his true nature. Squa-squa! And slowly, everything changes.

Procida, once an Eden — a perfect paradise — becomes too small. Did you know? Even the most beautiful island can feel like a cage if you stay too long.

At sixteen, Arturo understands it’s time to leave. He abandons his childhood, his paradise, and enlists as a soldier to reach the mainland. This is where real life begins — not the one you dream, but the one you live.