When I started writing, as a young boy, it immediately seemed unusual to set a story in Italy. Since we were young, we have been immersed in American films and television series, which in my opinion comes naturally to us to call our protagonist Joe and make him move through the slums of New York. We are convinced that we know that city, those states, that people, that way of life, but in reality we know almost nothing about how people live in America, except for the little we are allowed to see in the films. And the story that comes out is only a caricature of the American ones, because we have no experience and because we are talking about a world that does not belong to us.


It had always seemed strange to me to set a story in my country, because I thought that, talking about a nearby reality, which could be touched first-hand, it could create problems, even if I hadn't asked myself what kind of problems. Better to write about Special Data distant cities, better yet to invent them, but always outside your own country. My first stories were all like that. American characters who lived in cities I invented. And the problems didn't take long to arrive. If a protagonist had to take the train to move from one state to another, I had to find out if, in that historical period, the train covered those distances. After a long break from fiction there has been a big step forward.



My characters have become Italian and move around Italy, at least it is easier to find information on public transport, laws and so on. Sometimes I invent the country, even though we have many. Sometimes I write a short story with “Anglo-Saxon” characters, but just for a bit of variety. Where to set a story? Have you ever wondered why American writers set their novels in America? And the English ones in England? And why did our writers of the past set them in Italy? Well, even the modern ones set them in Italy. These are all questions that an emerging writer must ask himself. Stories should be set in places we know. In our city, in our country, in the streets we have traveled thousands of times, in the past, but always local. This may be a solution.