GUERRA, Tonino
Equilibrium

A nameless graphic designer is haunted by the concentration camp in which he was once interned. Obsessed with his past, as well as Italy's present ‘economic miracle’, he retreats to a rural villa where he decorates the rooms with "arrows, signs, advertisements"; invents a new, purposefully incomprehensible typeface; and attempts to devise a marketing campaign for stones. Upon finally returning to Milan life becomes even more unbalanced. He loses his job and acquires a mistress whom he soon confuses both with his wife and the memory of the young, Czech woman he abandoned at the end of the war.

Known primarily as a screenwriter for Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini and Andrei Tarkovsky among many others, Tonino Guerra also wrote poetry and fiction. Reissued to mark the centenary of his birth, and with a new introduction by acclaimed cultural critic Michael Bracewell, Equilibrium remains a relevant, powerful, and intensely visual account of a broken but (post-)modern man. [pulishers’ note]

Translated from the Italian by Eric Mosbacher; with a new introduction by Michael Bracewell. 

Published by Moist, 2020
Literature