SOBRE LAS CINCO ALMAS DE FRANCESCO PASQUALE

Francesco Pasquale was born in Sapri, in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a little further south than Giuseppe Verdi, during the same years as Richard Wagner and Robert Schumann. This book recounts his adventures and travels, just as it brings us closer to three crucial moments in the lives of those three composers. Francesco migrated, like Wagner; he raised stillborn children and longed for the unification of Italy, like Verdi; and he lived with ghosts, like Schumann. Francesco Pasquale was a unique individual, so much so that each reader sees themselves reflected in him. He was so special that he isn't always the protagonist of his own life; at every turn, he cedes the leading role in his own biography to renowned doctors, political activists, or women of indomitable character. Through his life, Francesco Pasquale traces a human map of the 19th century, a map that begins in southern Italy and reaches the shores of the Cantabrian Sea, a map that suffers and rejoices, a map that sings and sleeps, a map that dreams and awakens. Originally written in Basque and translated by the author himself, On the Five Souls of Francesco Pasquale is a novel constructed from independent narratives, stories that intertwine to form a whole. Thus, through scents and open doors, it becomes a peculiar narrative architecture, decorated, at certain points, with distinctive dreamlike imagery.