Livia is forty years old, Italian, and lives in New York. She is working as an editor and translator when she meets Arno, an American, a computer analyst, a quiet and brilliant man: the two more than know each other, they recognize each other, and soon become a couple. But, as is often the case after a certain age, there is a past to come to terms with. Indeed, Arno has a marriage and divorce behind him, an ex-wife, and most importantly, a five-year-old daughter, Emma. Livia has never been interested in children, yet at first she does not mind him being a father, as if it added a kind of warmth to the sensuality. Before long, however, it becomes clear to her that her relationship with Arno can never be just a twosome.

Right away her daughter erodes the couple's emotional space with her needs and whims, sometimes simply with her presence. Emma treats Livia as an intruder, while Livia fails to see in Emma the child she is. Over time they end up experiencing each other as rivals, adversaries. The mistrust between them escalates until an incident brings to the surface the electric current of a three-way bond that has never been declared.

His Daughter is a story of minimal explosive everydayness: Chiara Marchelli investigates with dry elegance and an intimate gaze the complexity of contemporary bonds, writing a novel that recounts a common experience-lived in the first person or in the stories of friends, friends, relatives-but which had not yet found accomplished representation. Burning and powerful here.

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Thursday, April 3 - from 7:30 pm

COMBO, Campo dei Gesuiti 4878 - Venice