Sea-level rise time: La Laguna Ancora

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This short story is the third (and longest, unexpectedly) in a collection of three inspired by my master's thesis research on sea level rise narrative futures in the Venice Lagoon: talk, trust, time.

A year or more in the making, I'm going to be publishing weekly installments of the novella that I'm writing in Italian. Titled La Laguna Ancora, ovvero Miel da Cansiglio va a Venesia (The Lagoon, Still; or, Miel from Cansiglio goes to Venesia), it takes a hydro-punk approach to speculative futures in Venice, imagining the future city as seen by a young traveler from the highlands who must deliver a package to her grandmother, who has recently disappeared after a fire in her building. The world that Miel belongs to is also one of recovering past forms and narratives, and one key source is the 16th century Venetian writer Veronica Franco, whose verses are refashioned for very different ends in this story.

The challenge of writing in Italian (with encouragement and early advice from Gaia Tilotta) has been an exercise in composition, of choosing words and sentence structures that match with the imagined world (or invisible city) I am attempting to show. Back-translating into English will happen down the line, but for now all Anglophones will have to use a translator, sorry.

Serial writing encourages a planned narrative to unfold with unexpected turns in the writing process. It's a pleasure to be sharing an early attempt at imagining worlds in a possibilistic, hopeful style. Thanks for following along with this exercise! New entries semi-regularly on Sundays.


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