Nature Writing: conversation with Matteo Righetto
The Spirit of the mountain

In 2018, tropical storm Vaia struck Northern Italy, leaving in its wake over one hundred thousand acres of forest laid to waste and dozens of lives lost. Four years later, in the same region, a serac (a tower of ice) broke off the Marmolada Glacier and killed eleven people. Offering a powerful echo of these two tragedies, Matteo Righetto published Il richiamo della montagna, a philosophical and poetic book-manifesto that argues for a new humanism, one that will fully integrate nature. Blending statistics, facts and concrete proposals, literary genres, conflicting human voices, and commands addressed directly to readers, the author passionately champions reconnecting the human mind with the wild.

Innovative writing about place that falls between fiction and nonfiction, esthetics and ethics that is meant to spur us to urgent action in the face of dwindling resources and the gradual extinction of plants and animals, starting with the destruction of mountain areas.