Dr. Fiore Moderates Book Presentation in Sicily (August 2024)

On Aug. 19, 2024, in the monumental backyard of the fascinating art galleries known as Fabbriche Chiaramontane in Agrigento (Italy), Dr. Teresa Fiore co-organized and moderated the presentation of the book Dasvidania (Marsilio, 2021) with the participation of the author Nikolai Prestia.

Dasvidania is a largely autobiographical work that interweaves Nikolai Prestia’s real life experiences with their transfiguration into the world of fictional Kola. Growing up in 1990s Soviet Russia in a family marked by poverty, substance abuse, and neglect, Kola and his sister are eventually admitted into the orphanage system. The ensuing journey, which eventually culminates in the adoption by an Italian family, alternates moments of both trauma and deliverance, while asking fundamental questions about our ability to reconcile ourselves with unfathomable loss through the powerful tool of storytelling.

 

Nikolai Prestia and Teresa Fiore addressed a wide array of issues during the exchange — from Prestia’s personal journey to the close link between socio-economic depression and adoption in sending countries, and the function of personal narration — alternating comments, anecdotes, and the reading of excerpts from the book. A particularly touching moment was Prestia’s impromptu choice to read a particularly delicate section devoted to his adoptive parents who were present in the audience. The ensuing debate involved educators, translators, and adoptive parents present in the audience, who were curious to learn about Prestia’s adjustment to the school system in Italy (made effective by two parents who were teachers!), his relationship with the people he left behind in Russia — unfortunately broken by distance and complex emotions — and his decision to conclude the book with the encounter with the adoptive parents without addressing the subsequent experience as an adoptee in Italy.

 

The event in Agrigento was not the first time that Teresa Fiore and Nikolai Prestia conversed about Dasvidania: they had met in the impalpable space of Zoom in 2021 during the pandemic (read more), while this time they were able to finally sit on a stage together and discuss this work of autofiction with a live – and lively – audience, hosted by the director of the Fabbriche, Beniamino Biondi (on the left below), and with the collaboration of Alessandro Accurso Tagano of the bookstore Il Mercante dei libri. In response to the questions concerning his future plans, Prestia announced the release of his second novel, La coscienza delle piante (Marsilio, 2024), and his nascent idea about a book that can indeed cover his adoption years, a venture made challenging by the involvement of many people who have shared that experience with him from different perspectives.

The presentation was organized at an important transitional moment for Dasvidania, which in a matter of a couple of weeks was reprinted as part of the Universale Economica Feltrinelli. Equally important, within less than a month, the English version of the book, co-translated by Dr. Fiore herself and Daniela Chaudhary Fiore (below with the author), was slated for publication in early 2026 in the OVOI series of Rutgers University Press, with a preface by Dr. Loredana Polezzi (SUNY Stony Brook).

“I have organized and moderated numerous book presentations over the past couple of decades, but this was the first time that I have been able to see the actual impact of a book and a conversation about it on the local community,” remarked Dr. Fiore. “Discussing a book in a relatively small town means that one bumps into participants for days after the event and can hear reactions after they have been able to let the content sediment: many were moved by the story, others found answers and new questions to their direct or indirect experiences of adoption, and yet others expressed comments about the style of the book which they read as a novel and not strictly speaking a memoir. But what left me pleasantly surprised was seeing participants read the book at the beach, or carry it in their backpacks for those idle moments between one commitment and another during the day, or even finish it in one day to then send me a text with enthusiasm about Prestia’s writing talent,” Fiore added.

Short link: https://tinyurl.com/DasvidaniaSicily