"L'ultima eclissi del millennio"

Between 1994 and 2006, Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia were crossed by a long season of terror and disorientation. During those years, a series of homemade explosives hidden behind seemingly common objects such as pens, toys, tubes of mayonnaise, Kinder eggs, candles, and other harmless tools suddenly turned into dangerous traps capable of injuring ordinary and innocent people, spreading a sense of increasing insecurity.

The person responsible for that long series of bomb attacks was never conclusively identified by investigators, fostering over time a deep collective sense of disorientation and unease that, years later, continues to raise perplexities and unresolved questions. The investigations, the multiple investigative pushes, the errors, and the various hypotheses that fueled public debate at that time skillfully intertwine with a broad reflection on the change of an entire era, accompanying the reader on a journey back through the nineties and the early two-thousands, returning the typical atmosphere of an Italy that found itself at the extreme boundary between two opposing worlds: that of the illusions of the twentieth century and the uncertain one of the new millennium. The province of the North-East, often described as the extreme symbol of efficiency and stability, appears to be crossed by an increasing sense of fragility, which foreshadowed many of the contemporary uncertainties.

The title itself takes on a strongly symbolic value in the novel. The eclipse evoked by Masini not only pertains to the dark and criminal mystery of Unabomber, but also represents the emblem that slowly descends upon an entire historical season. Thus, the unresolved mystery becomes a metaphor for something greater: the impossibility of finding clear explanations for an epochal change that involves an increasing number of people, territories, and collective identities. The meeting will be a precious opportunity to delve into not only one of the most discussed cases of black news in Italian history but also a valid pretext to deeply reflect on the power of literature in preserving and reinterpreting the value of collective memory, capable of engaging both those who directly remember those news events and the new generations who wish to understand the dynamics of a crucial period that indelibly marked the entire community.